G  ,/o  .  o//~ 


^^  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^ 

Presented    b^j^^^^r<2.3\0.'^'^\\^<7\W C>r-\ 


BL  2758  .P67 

1856 

^ 

Post,  Truman 

M.  1810- 

-1886. 

The  skeptical  era 

in 

modern 

history 

:M 


\^ 


THE 


SKEPTICAL  EEA 

IN  MODERN  HISTORY ; 

*  OR, 

Cfje  liifibtlitj)  «f  tfje  dtig|tteirt|  Ctiiturg, 

THE  PRODUCT  OF  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISlf. 
BY   T.    M.    POST. 


[N'EW    YOKK; 
CHAKLES   SCRIBNER,  145  NASSAU   STREET. 


lS/36. 


Entbugd  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1855,  by 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  U.S.  District  Court,  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


W.  H.  TINSON,  STERBCiPYPEB.  OBORGB   RUSSCLL  &   CO.,  PRINTERS. 


PREFACE, 


Freedom  and  Faith  are  the  great  Tutelar  Forces  of 
modern  civilization.  Their  relatixjn  tcr  each  other  is  the 
great  problem  of  the  age  ;  one  whose  solution  has  with  it 
the  destiny  of  the  future.  The  question  presses  on  us  witK 
the  more  solemn  aspect,  the  more  evident  becomes  the 
hastening  approach  of  an  era  of  democratic  liberty  in 
church,  state,  and  society.  What  condition  of  the  rehgious 
sentiment  will  consort  with  that  political  and  social  order 
of  the  world  ?  Will  faith  consist  with  it  ?  If  so,  will  it 
be  a  vigorous,  vital,  commanding,  organic  element,  or  is  it 
destined  to  be  timid  and  feeble,  holding  with  unbelief  a 
doubtful  and  divided  empire  ? 

A  philosophic  writer,  eminent  for  accurate  and  profound 
social  analysis,  De  Tocqueville,  thus  gives  his  solution  of 
the  above  problem.  "  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  our 
posterity  in  the  democratic  ages  will  tend  more  and  more 
to  a  single  division  into  two  parts  ;  some  relinquishing 
Christianity  entirely,  others  returning  to  the  bosom  of  the 
Church  of  Rome."  That  is,  in  the  ages  of  democratic  free- 
dom, spiritual  despotism  will  be  the  only  conservator  of 
faith. 

Chateaubriand  also,  in  his  "  Etudes  Historiques  "  claims 


IV  PREFACE. 

for  Catholicism  that  it  is  the  religion  of  democratic  society, 
whilst  he  characterizes  the  Reformed  Faith  as  "  Fhilosophic 
truth,  clothed  with  Christian  form,  attacking  religious  trutW — 
having  achieved  for  society  a  change  from  the  military  to 
the  civil  and  industrial  genius,  and  "  able  to  point,  amid  the 
ruins  it  has  wrought,  simply  to  some  field  it  has  planted,  and 
some  manufactures  it  has  estahlishedP  I^or  are  these  writers 
alone  in  their  forecast  of  the  future,  or  their  estimate  of  the 
relations  of  Protestantism  to  democracy  and  faith.  Senti- 
ments like  the  above  are  rife  in  the  literature  of  the  day. 
They  are  the  cant  of  a  school  ;  a  school  not  of  the  Catholic 
communion  alone.  Protestant  writers  of  profound  and 
tasteful  culture,  of  devout  and  earnest  tone,  and  of  a  seduc- 
tive plausibility  and  grace,  join  in  their  utterance. 

Protestantism,  they  tell  you,  is  a  religion  of  negations  ; 
its  philosophy  that  of  doubt,  denial,  irreverence  and  insur- 
rection ;  its  triumphs  logical,  economic,  administrative, 
industrial,  fiscal  ;  its  genius  cold,  hard,  practical,  material- 
istic ;  unheroic,  unideal,  undevout — the  very  antipodes  of 
exalted  religious  passion  or  faith.  These  are  to  find  shelter 
alone  under  the  shadow  of  an  ecclesiastical  absolutism. 
Thus  the  democratic  ages  are  to  be  the' millennium  of  spiri- 
tual despotism  ;  both  because  such  despotism  will,  by 
natural  affinity  attract  those  ages,  and  because  it  alone  will 
be  able  to  keep  alive  religious  sentiment  and  belief  during 
their  progress.  Thus,  in  many  quarters  Protestantism 
seems  afraid  of  its  own  life-principles,  and  verging  towards 
the  suicide  of  renouncing  them.  But  before  joining  in  this 
deadly  work,  we  are  compelled  to  pause  and  inquire.  Is 
the  above  solution  of  the  religious  problem  of  society  the 
true  one  ?  Is  despotism  the  only  keeper  of  faith  ?  An  era 
of  entire  liberty,  of  necessity,  an  era  of  unbelief  ?  What 
facts  authorize  an  augury  so  gloomy  ?     The  advocates  of 


PREFACE.  V 

sentiments  above  alluded  to,  claim  that  history  makes  for 
them,  and  point  in  proof  to  the  infidel  cycle  following  the 
Lutheran  reform.  The  era  of  irreligious  eclipse  and  the  cat- 
astrophe of  the  world  which  closed  it,  they  arraign  as  crimes 
of  liberty— of  Protestantism.  It  was  this,  they  argue,  which 
poisoned  modern  civilization.  It  was  this  which,  by  the 
revolution  in  philosophy,  and  the  insurrection  of  mind 
against  authority,  which  it  inaugurated  ;  and  by  the 
dethronement  of  the  religious  idea  and  the  enthronement  of 
that  of  wealth  over  European  civilization,  wrought  the  ruin 
of  the  world's  faith.  This  was  to  society  the  fountain  of 
doubt  and  irreverence,  and  of  materialism,  sensualism,  and 
Mammonism,  that  corrupted  the  world  and  prepared  its 
overthrow. 

But  it  has  seemed  to  the  writer  of  this  work,  that  their 
very  witness  confutes  them  ;  that  it  requires  no  very  acute 
or  profound  analysis  to  trace  the  infidelity  of  the  eighteenth 
century  to  a  widely  different  source.  To  ascribe  the  skep- 
ticism of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  religious  revolution 
of  the  sixteenth,  is  to  ascribe  a  stream  to  the  cascade  down 
which  its  waters  may  have  previously  flowed.  It  were  as 
philosophical  to  attribute  to  the  overflow  of  a  dammed-up 
flood  gushing  down  one  side  its  reservoir,  its  resurgent  over- 
flow on  another.  Such  a  cascade,  was  the  Lutheran 
reform,  in  the  progress  of  modern  mind :  such  a  flow  and 
resurgent  overflow  from  the  dammed-up  flood  of  European 
thought,  were  the  religious  and  philosophical  revolutions 
of  the  sixteenth  and  eighteenth  centuries — independent 
consequences  of  a  common  force. 

Another  cause,  patent  and  portentous,  stands  out  in 
^tnean  prominence  in  that  landscape  of  ruin — a  cause,  the 
direct  antithesis  of  liberty.  To  trace  this  cause,  to  show 
its  wide-spread  mischievousness,  imparting  a  malign  efficiency 


VI  PREFACE. 

to  causes  merely  secoudary  or  occasional,  and  to  exhibit  its 
essential  and  implacable  hostility  to  genuine  faith,  is  th  e 
aim  of  these  pages  ;  an  aim  pursued  through  the  relations 
historical  and  philosophical,  of  the  phenomenon  we  are  con- 
sidering. 

In  pursuance  of  this  aim,  I  have  first  attempted  to  exhibit 
the  fact  we  are  to  explain — the  nature  and  extent  of  that 
strange  defection  of  faith  that  marked  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. We,  then,  consider  its  causes  ;  and  first  those  which 
are  secondary  and  occasional ;  such  as  e.  g.,  the  low  and 
relaxed  moral  tone  of  the  world's  mind  at  the  time  the 
epidemic  of  unbelief  set  in — the  century  and  a  half  of  reli- 
gious agonism  and  arms  which  preceded  the  revolution  in 
philosophy  inaugurated  by  Bacon  and  Des  Cartes  in  physics 
and  metaphysics,  and  by  Luther  in  the  realm  of  religion — 
and  the  rise  of  the  idea  of  wealth  to  the  ascendency  in 
cabinets  of  governments,  and  in  general  society.  Our  view 
is  then  directed  to  the  "  Fons  et  origo  malorum,^^  the  great 
CAUSE  OF  CAUSES  of  the  evil  we  investigate  ;  viz  :  despotism, 
despotism  both  secular  and  spiritual,  but  with  especial  and 
portentous  preeminence  of  the  latter.  Our  investigation 
then,  brings  us  to  the  geographic  focus  and  centre  of  the 
plague  : — France.  Its  position  in  European  civilization — 
its  civil  and  ecclesiastical  constitution  and  history — its 
court,  monarchy,  church,  literature — these  are  seen  through 
the  malign  influence  of  spiritual  despotism,  directed  to  the 
subversion  of  belief ;  and  finally  resulting  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  conspiracy  and  crusade  against  the  faith  of  the 
world. 

Having  traced  the  evil  cause  above  noted,  i.  c.,  despotism, 
to  its  consequences  in  France,  we  next  inquire  into  its 
effects  in  other  countries  of  Europe, — those  especially 
claimed  by  spiritual  despotism  as  monuments  of  her  power 


PREFACE.  VU 

to  guard  nations  from  infidelity — viz.:  Italy  and  Spain.  A 
brief  view  of  the  manner  in  which  she  has  conserved  faith 
in  the  two  peninsulas  closes  our  survey. 

Such  is  in  general  the  plan  and  aim  of  this  work.  If  I 
shall  have  been  to  any  degree  thereby  instrumental  of 
adding  in  any  mind  to  the  elements  of  hopefulness  and  cou- 
rage in  the  solution  of  the  great  problem  indicated,  or  of 
giving  confidence  to  the  confession  of  the  great  principles 
of  Protestant  liberty,  or  shall  have  contributed  aught  to 
vindicate  for  the  human  soul  prerogatives  claimed  by  its 
imperishable  instincts,  warranted  by  the  great  charter  of  its 
faith,  I  shall  feel  that  this  humble  effort  is  not  altogether 
without  service  to  the  Great  King  of  truth  to  whom  it  is 
my  wish  to  dedicate  it. 

T.  M.  P. 

St.  Louis,  Oct.  20, 1855. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   SKEPTICISM  OP  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY, 
ITS   CHARACTER  AND   EXTENT. 

The  Skeptical  Era  in  Modern  History — Aa  Eclipse — The  Arse  mil  of 
conflicting  Philosophic  Schools — Skepticism,  the  Epidemic  of  tlij 
world  through  an  entire  Historic  Cycle — Its  changing  Genius- 
Skepticism  in  Literature — In  Philosophy— The  Philosophic  Anarchs 
and  Revolutionists — Skepticism  in  Belles-lettres,  Criticism,  Art, 
Poetry,  History,  Oratory — Skepticism  in  Place  and  Power— Fred- 
erick of  Prussia,  Joseph  of  Austria,  and  Catherine  of  Russia — 
Skepticism  in  the  Million — Skepticism  becomes  a  Fanaticism — A 
Nemesis — The  Infidelity  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  ;  more  a  War 
with  Facts  than  Creeds  ;  more  with  the  Church  than  Christianity — 
Its  geographic  Origin  and  Theatre  .....      9 

CHAPTER   II. 

CAUSE    OF  THE   INFIDELITY  OP  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY. 

A  century  and  a  half  precedent  of  Religious  Passion  and  War ; 
Relaxation,  Exhaustion,  and  Reaction  consequent— Position  of  the 
Religious  Liberties  of  Nations  at  its  close — Dethronement  of  the 
Religious  Idea — Causes  and  Consequences — Religious  Wars — "Who 
was  responsible  for  them  and  their  Mischiefs  to  Faith— Aspect  of 
the  World  at  the  opening  of  the  Skeptical  Era  melancholy  and 
portentous — Its  Lessons 36 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  III. 

REVOLUTION   IN  PHILOSOPHY. 

Revolution  ia  Philosophy — A  necessity  of  Social  Progress  perverted 
by  Spiritual  Despotism  to  the  destruction  of  Faith — Protestantism 
a  Revolutionist  in  Philosophy — Different  Philosophic  Methods 
— Aristotelian— Scholastic — Baconian — Medieval  Philosophy,  the 
instrument  of  Spiritual  Despotism — Aristotle  and  the  Pope, 
Joint  Monarchs  and  High  Priests  of  Thought  and  Faith — Revolu- 
tion in  Philosophy,  an  emancipation  of  mind — Its  position  in  the 
Map  of  Modern  History — Eras  of  Religious,  Philosophical,  and 
Political  Revolution — Futility  and  fruitlessness  of  the  Old  Phi- 
losophy— A  barren  toil  in  an  endless  circle — A  blind  and  fetter  of 
Mind — Its  Overthrow  a  Necessity — Why  it  dragged  Faith  with  it 
in  its  Fall — Different  Results  in  different  Countries — Disasters  to 
Faith,  the  result  of  Spiritual  Despotism — Protestantism  as  Revo- 
lutionist in  Philosophy  a  mighty  Benefactor — Plea  of  the  Baconian 
Philosophy .37 

CHAPTER  IV. 

MAMMONISM. 

Rise  of  the  Idea  of  "Wealth  to  the  Ascendency  in  European  Society 
— Causes — Subsidence  of  Religious  Passions — Old  paths  of 
National  Aggrandizement  closed  up — Transfer  of  Ambition  and 
Enterprise  to  new  Desertions — Progress  of  Society  in  Wealth  and 
Productive  Art — The  Era  of  Economies — Mississippi  Schemes — 
East  Indies — Ventures — South  Sea  Bubbles — The  Money-God 
Supreme — The  new  Philosophy  his  Minister — Acme  of  his  Reign  at 
Paris  under  the  Regent  of  Orleans— Law's  Banking  Scheme— The 
Saturnalia  of  Mammon — Rise  of  the  Idea  of  Wealth  a  Necessity 
of  Social  Progress — Why  so  Disastrous  to  Faith  ? — Money-mania 
in  France  and  England  Compared — Dangers  to  Modern  Society 
from  Mammonism 91 

CHAPTER   V. 

SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

Spiritual  Despotism,  the  Cause  of  Causes— Era  of  Absolutism — Dou- 
ble Despotism  over  Europe  —  Treaty   of  Westphalia — Military 


CONTENTS.  Xi 

Monarcliies— Hopelessness  and  helplessness  of  the  Millions— Intel- 
lectual repression— Mind  driven  from  the  Practical  to  the  Specula- 
tive—License of  Speculative  Thought— The  World  Undermined— 
War  on  Private  Judgment— A  War  on  the  Faith  of  Nations—The 
Spiritual  Power  Darkened  and  Emasculated— Intellectual  imbecil- 
ity of  the  Church— Ecclesiastical  Literature  in  Protestant  and 
Catholic  Europe 117 

CHAPTER  YI. 

SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

Despotism  Corrupts  the  Spiritual  Power,  through  Hierarchy,  Confes- 
sional, Celibacy,  Separation  of  Power  from  the  People  ;  Peculiar 
Corruptions  of  Politico-Ecclesiastical  Despotism,  especially  around 
the  Thrones  of  Central  Europe,  in  the  17th  and  18th  centuries- 
Cardinal  Dubois— Regent  of  Orleans— Louis  15th— Christianity 
made  a  Religion  of  Force — Terrible  pressure  of  Spiritual  Despotism 
in  the  precedent  ages— Reaction  as  the  Force  applied— England  and 
France  compared — Christianity  hated  of  the  Nations  as  the  ally 
of  Secular  Tyranny— Infidelity  from  Superstition— from  Infalli- 
bility—Essential and  immortal  malignancy  of  Spiritual  Des- 
potism       14,4: 

CHAPTER   VII. 

FRAXCE. 

France  the  most  Powerful  Generator  and  Dififuser  of  Infidelity — 
Her  Position  in  Modern  History — The  Model  Kingdom  of  Europe 
— Oracle  of  Civilization — Her  Early  Culture — Genius— Language 
— Court  Literature — Political  Ascendency — Self-diffusiveness — 
Causes  of  Infidelity  in  her  Civil  and  Ecclesiastic  Constitution  and 
History— Religious  Wars— Albigenses— Huguenots— Separation  of 
the  Actual  from  the  Ideal  the  widest— Reaction  of  Repressed 
Mind  most  Passionate— Daring  and  Revolutionary  Despotism  in 
France  in  the  17th  and  18th  Centuries— Absolutism  of  Louis  XIV. 
— Its  Mischief— Two  Great  Crimes  of  the  French  Church  and 
Monarchy  Generative  of  Infidelity  —  Ecclesiastic  Barbarism 
extending  down  toward  the  close  of  the  18th  Century — Torture 
and  Execution  at  Abbeville  177G — Despotism  in  France  applied 
to  a  Mind  the  most  Active,  Daring,  Witty  and  Philosophic  in 
Europe      .        • 177 


Xil  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

FRANCE. 

French  Literature  of  the  18th  century— Infidel  Writers  and  Savans 
—Mission  of  Infidelity  organized— Its  Apostles  and  Evangelists, 
Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  the  Encyclopedists— Their  Quarry,  the 
French  church— Its  Corruption,  Ignorance,  Superstitions  and 
Cruelties— Jesuitism— Its  Expose  and  Fall— Money-madness  in 
France — The  Primal  Fountain  of  her  Infidelity — Politico-Ecclesi- 
astical Despotism 203 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM  IX  ITALY  AND    SPAIN. 

Italy — Spiritual  Despotism  a  generator  of  Infidelity  in  Italy  and 
Spain — Italian  History  mutilated  and  stifled — Its  silence  significant 
— Insurrection  of  Mind  indicated  by  the  measures  of  Repression — 
Their  Multitude  and  Atrocity — Censorships — Proscriptions — Cru- 
sades— Massacres — Dominicans —  Franciscans — The  Inquisition — 
Glimpses  of  Infidelity  in  Italian  History  and  Literature — Infidelity 
a  necessity  of  Pontifical  History  applied  to  tlie  Italian  mind — The 
Troubadour — Dante— Petrarch— Arnold  of  Brescia — Savonarola — 
Infidel  Scholars  — Monarchs:— Popes — Repressive  measures  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century — Their  utter  mercilessness — Terror — Silence 
— Italy  stifled  but  not  believing 229 

Spain. — Orthodoxy  of  Spain — No  Spasm  in  a  Corpse — The  Inquisi- 
tion, the  instrument  of  Spanish  Faith — Its  mystery  and  terror — 
War  on  Books — Index  Expurgatorus  —  Death  struggle  of  the 
Spanish  mind,  1559-1570 — Spanish  Thought,  Literature,  Civiliza- 
tion, Manhood  fall  together — Silencfi  not  belief — The  Peninsula 
still  seething  with  insurgent  Infidelity — Three  Realms  of  Spiritual 
Despotism  compared         .        .  246 

CONCLUSION. 

R6sum6  of  the  Argument — Lessons  for  the  Times — Doom  of  Spirit- 
ual Despotism 256 


CHAPTEE   I. 

THE  SKEPTICISM  OF  THE  EIGHTEEiNTH  CEiNTUEY. 

ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT. 

The  Skeptical  Era  in  Modern  History — An  Eclipse — The  Arsenal  of 
conflicting  Philosophic  Schools — Skepticism,  the  Epidemic  of  the 
world  through  an  entire  Historic  Cycle — Its  changing  Genius — 
Skepticism  in  Literature— In  Philosophy — The  Philosophic  Anarchs 
and  Revolutionists — Skepticism  in  Belles-lettres,  Criticism,  Art, 
Poetry,  History,  Oratory — Skepticism  in  Place  and  Power — Fred- 
erick of  Prussia,  Joseph  of  Austria,  and  Catherine  of  Russia — 
Skepticism  in  the  Million — Skepticism  becomes  a  Fanaticism — A 
Nemesis — The  Infidelity  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  ;  more  a  War 
with  Facts  than  Creeds  ;  more  with  the  Church  than  Christianity — 
Its  geographic  Origin  and  Theatre. 

The  period  tliroiigli  which  oiir  proposed  discussion 
conducts  us,  was  eminently  the  skeptical  era  in 
modern  history ;  an  era  brilliant,  powerful,  daring, 
but  melancholy  and  ruinous.  It  bequeathed  to  the 
Present,  lessons  of  vast  import.  The  eighteenth  cen- 
tury may  be  fitly  defined  a  period  of  Eeligious 
Eclipse  in  modern  civilization.  Tlie  definition  is 
significant  and  descriptive  of  the  fact. 

The  period  was  one  of  deep  and  wide  occultation 
of  the  religious  element  in  modern  civilization — an 
eclipse,  not  a  sunset — for  the  orb  of  Christian  Light 


THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  :  10 

and  Life  was  still  climbing  the  skies.  The  world 
passed  into  j^rofound  shade — but  though  dark  and 
chill,  it  was  not  the  shadow  of  night.  It  was  an 
eclipse  in  which  the  satellite  lunar  orb — the  re- 
flector of  the  great  central  light — came  between  the 
earth  and  that  light.  The  Chuech  intervened 
between  God  and  the  world,  between  humanity  and 
Jesus  Christ,  and  history  consequently  moves  on 
through  a  cycle  ofiurid  and  disastrous  gloom. 

It  is  a  period  of  profound  interest  in  the  study  of 
the  Past.  The  Infidelity  of  the  eighteenth  century 
is  as  important  a  theme  as  the  revolution  which 
sprang  from  it.  It  is  a  period  of  startling  contrasts ; 
according  to  aspects  presented  from  different  points 
of  view,  it  is  the  most  hopeful  or  most  fearful,  the 
most  disastrous  or  most  successful,  the  most  glorious 
or  most  shameful  in  modern  history ;  and  it  throws 
its  light  and  gloom  over  the  age  in  which  we  are, 
and  down  the  distant  future.  These  very  contrasts 
and  the  multiformity  of  aspects  make  it  one  of 
solemn  and  varied  significance,  and  of  profoundest 
instruction.  Tliey  have  made  it  also  the  "  locus  com- 
munis''''— the  commonplace  topic — of  argument  or 
warning,  of  vindication  or  invective,  for  opposite 
schools  of  ecclesiastical  and  social  philosophers  ;  the 
arsenal  from  which  the  absolutist  and  the  liberal, 
the  conservative  and  the  reformer,  the  reactionary 


ITS    CHARACTER    AND   EXTENT.  11 

and  the  progressive,  the  Eomanist  and  the  Protestant, 
alike  derive  their  weapons ;  each  challenging  it  as 
argument  and  justification  of  itself  and  as  the  con- 
demnation and  scandal  of  its  antagonist. 

The  one  school  regards  this  era  as  almost  sheerly 
infernal;  the  other  views  it  as  bringing  with  its 
crime  and  ruin,  vast  blessings  ;  but  both  alike  brand- 
ish, each  at  the  other,  its  sins  and  its  shames,  in  deri- 
sion and  anathema,  as  the  direct  and  necessary 
sequence  of  its  adversary's  distinctive  principles. 
But  read  the  phenomena  of  the  proposed  period  dif- 
ferently as  they  may,  all  parties  unite  in  regarding 
it  as  furnishing  lessons  of  vast  import  for  society  and 
the  church  in  our  age. 

AYe  purpose  as  we  may  be  able  to  read  and  inter- 
pret these  lessons;  to  inquire  what  causes  pushed 
society  for  such  a  period  upon  such  a  career  of  illu- 
sion, impiety,  and  ruin.  We  may  have  occasion  to 
track  to  their  historic  consequences,  principles  of 
antagonistic  philosophical  and  ecclesiastic  schools 
that  are  contending  for  the  possession  of  our  age; 
and  may  be  able  thus  in  looking  over  this  page  of 
history,  blotted  so  much  with  tears  and  blood  and 
shame,  to  detect  dangers  that  attach  to  the  present, 
and  catch  glimpses  of  a  prophecy  projected  down 
the  future.  A  chapter  that  has  cost  so  much  and 
effected  so  much  for  humanity,  ought  not  to  pass 


12  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

without  imparting  important  instructions.  As  tlie 
readiest  means  of  deriving  those  instructions,  we  pro- 
pose to  investigate  and  track  to  historic  origin,  the 
great  central  fact  of  the  period — the  germ  and  expo- 
nent of  its  moral  disease — its  skepticism,  and  to  inter- 
rogate it  both  as  cause  and  eflfect. 

Whence  then  arose  that  occultation  of  faith  that 
darkened  Europe  ditring  the  last  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth, and  the  entire  course  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury ?  striking  through  society  with  chill  and  para- 
lysis during  the  first  part  of  this  period,  emasculating 
and  corrupting  it,  and  finally  draping  its  sunset  in 
crimson  glooms  ? 

But  first,  let  us  endeavor  to  describe  and  define 
the  phenomenon  we  propose  to  investigate.  Let  us 
aim  rightly  to  conceive  of  that  strange  and  porten- 
tous condition  of  the  world's  mind,  we  are  to  analyze, 
and  trace  to  its  origin. 

The  phenomenon  is  as  patent  as  it  is  baleful ;  is 
one  fearfully  unique,  one  most  distinctively  marked. 
It  stands  in  the  landscape  of  the  past,  in  the  promi- 
nence of  a  volcanic  mountain,  strange,  unmistakable, 
portentous.  It  is  the  great  feature  of  a  historic 
cycle.  It  strikes  one  at  the  first  glance  that  some 
strangely  malignant  and  disastrous  influences  must 
have  moved  on  the  human  mind  during  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  to  drive  it  from  the  regions  of  faith. 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  13 

Infidelity  is  undoubtedly  ever  more  or  less  preva- 
lent in  society.  The  ultimate  philosophy  of  this  is 
unquestionally  that  announced  by  the  Apostle:  "men 
do  not  choose  to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge." 
Man  hid  from  his  God  in  Eden,  and  his  history  is 
full  of  the  same  attempt :  so  it  will  be  to  the  end. 

"When  the  son  of  man  cometh,  shall  He  find  faith 
on  the  earth?"  is  our  Saviour's  significant  inquiry. 

But  in  the  historic  view  before  us,  it  is  the  ejpide 
miG  of  the  world  for  a  centv/ry.  A  moral  plague  has 
struck  through  Christendom — through  its  entire 
thought  and  feeling,  its  manners,  literature,  legisla- 
tion, its  philosophy,  its  poetry,  its  oratory ;  through 
all  its  private  and  public  life ;  through  all  its  social 
order  from  the  camp  to  the  altar,  and  from  the 
galley  to  the  throne ;  and  through  its  domestic  and 
international  politics.  Jt  imbues  the  European  mind 
and  life  as  a  master  feeling ;  yea  at  last,  strange  as 
it  may  seem  for  a  thing  ordinarily  so  feeble  as  unbe- 
lief, as  a  master  passion :  all  Europe  hisses  with  a 
scoffing  skepticism  which  gradually  changes  to  a 
scream  of  maniac  rage.  The  genius  of  unbelief 
presides  everywhere.  In  the  chamber  of  the  volup- 
tuary, the  academy  of  the  savant,  the  conclave  of 
hierarchies,  the  salons  of  the  witty  and  beautiful,  and 
finally  in  national  assemblies  tempestuous  with  revo- 
lution, it  sits — not  a  Miltonic  Satan  "  with  the  staiTy 


14  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

grandeur  of  darkness  "  on  his  brow,  defiant  tlioiigh 
believing  and  despairing — but  a  sneering  Mephisto- 
pliiles,  in  whose  glance  the  flowers  of  Christian 
civilization  wither.  Honor,  honesty,  chastity  as  well 
as  piety,  seem  to  flee  like  Astrea  of  old  from  the 
earth.  Frand,  cunning,  perfidy,  avarice,  creej)  like 
a  chill  malaria  through  all  the  highways  and  by-ways 
of  the  world.  With  them  accompany  sensualism, 
luxury,  prodigality,  and  cruel  rapacity.  Between 
nations  public  law  is  prostrated ;  faith  and  morality 
seem  perished.  The  great  European  family  of  states 
seems  converted  into  a  band  of  picaroons  and  rob- 
bers, now  uniting,  now  quarrelling  on  the  question 
of  mutual  dismemberment  and  plunder.  Eirst  Sax- 
ony, then  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria,  then  Frederick 
of  Prussia,  and  finally,  unhappy  Poland,  present  the 
quarry  for  these  conspiracies  of  miscreant  cabinets. 

Everywhere  men  doubt,  disbelieve,  deny ;  and  in 
regard  to  every  interest.  Under  the  deadly  paraly- 
sis, the  society  of  the  world  seems  going  into  disso- 
lution ;  all  its  ordinary  bands  are  unloosed.  There 
is  no  God  in  its  temples ;  no  sincerity  in  its  worship ; 
no  belief  in  its  creed ;  no  morality  in  its  policy  or 
practice.  The  soul  of  the  world  seems  materialized, 
sensualized,  mammonized.  Society  is  dying  of  the 
want  of  faith — faith  in  religion  or  in  virtue — faith  in 
man  or  in  God.     With  faith  perishing  have  perished 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  15 

heroism  and  truth,  chivalry  and  law ;  and  the  order 
of  the  world  is  undermined.  At  first  the  malady  of 
which  we  speak,  strikes  through  Christendom  as  a 
cold  plague ;  but  toward  the  close  of  the  period  we 
are  reviewing,  it  changes  to  a  delirious  fever.  The 
Mephistophiles  of  the  first  act,  appears  at  the  catas- 
trophe an  avenging  flaming  Apollyon. 

If  in  proof  and  illustration  of  the  above  statements 
we  look  at  some  of  the  various  departments  of 
thought  and  action  in  those  ages,  at  some  of  the 
great  thinkers  and  actors  in  them,  we  find  writers  of 
every  class  ;  legists,  publicists,  statesmen,  poets,  phi- 
losophers, economists,  ecclesiastics;  we  find  also 
courts,  kings,  generals,  hierarchs  and  the  general 
spirit  and  tendencies  of  the  masses,  all  imbued  with 
a  religious  skepticism. 

First  let  us  look  at  the  utterance  of  the  era  in  its 
literature.  This  we  find  almost  universally  skep- 
tical.- We  shudder  at  its  bad  eminence  in  this 
respect,  at  the  human  mind  for  a  century  of  most 
mighty,  successful  and  brilliant  achievement,  con- 
stantly expending  its  energies  against  the  Most  High ; 
lifting  like  a  mad  Titan  against  the  pillars  of  elder 
civilization — against  its  faith,  philosophy  and  order ; 
and  in  its  struggle  to  emancipate  itself,  hurling  its 
broken  fetters  at  the  throne  of  God.  We  tremble 
when  we  contemplate  the  dark  inundation  of  cor- 


16  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA: 

riipting  thouglit  poured  forth  like  a  river  of  infernal 
night  for  one  hundred  years  on  the  mind  of  the 
world !  and,  how  the  floods  of  an  ungodly  literature 
gatlier  around  the  city  of  our  God !  reason,  jdHIoso- 
phy,  eloquence,  imagination,  leading  on  the  attack : 
poesy,  art,  wit,  grace  and  beauty  hanging  their 
glittering  banners  above  the  impious  onset.  Truly, 
"  The  floods  have  lifted  up,  O  Lord,  the  floods  have 
lifted  up  their  voice.  Tlie  floods  lifted  up  their 
waves.  But  the  Lord  on  high  was  mightier  than 
many  waters,  yea,  than  the  mighty  waves  of  the 
sea." 

Guizot  characterized  the  eighteenth  century  as 
one  distinguished  from  its  predecessors  by  the  fact, 
that  in  it  the  Ivuman  mind  seems  the  supreme  and 
almost  sole  actor,  to  the  comparative  exclusion  of 
cabinets  and  governments.  It  was  one  also  in  which 
the  human  mind  appears  animated  by  a  spirit  of 
universal  free  inquiry,  making  everything  the  sub- 
ject of  question,  doubt  and  system;  avenging  itself 
for  its  exclusion  from  afi'airs,  by  the  most  daring  and 
boundless  license  in  the  realms  of  speculative 
thought;  and  in  that  realm  respecting  no  external 
fact  or  institution,  and  standing  in  awe  before  no 
authority  and  no  principle.  Such  a  mind  looks  forth 
on  you  from  all  its  literature.  You  admire  its  free- 
dom and  power ;  are  appalled  at  its  irreverence  and 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  17 

impiety.  You  tremble  when  you  think  ol  the  shock 
that  must  ensue  when  the  ideal  w^orld  it  builds,  shall 
come,  as  it  must  in  time,  in  collision  with  the 
Actual. 

Such  is  the  general  spirit  of  all  thought  during 
this  period.  That  in  the  domain  of  literature,  it 
should  have  taken  primary  and  especial  possession 
of  xMlosojpliy^  was  natural.  Here  obviously  it  must 
have  entrenched  itself.  Here  we  know,  must  have 
been  its  citadel,  if  not  its  fountain.  But  we  are 
startled  to  note  the  extent  to  which  it  seems  to  be 
held,  as  by  demoniacal  possession,  with  a  spirit  of 
universal  Skepticism,  and  armed  only  with  the  logic 
of  insurrection  and  destruction.  The  foundations  of 
all  belief  are  sapped  by  it.  It  boldly  questions 
everything.  It  revolutionizes  the  primal  method 
and  the  first  principles  of  all  faith.  It  appHes  its 
skeptical  method  to  all  departments  and  to  every 
interest ;  finance,  jDolitical  economy,  chemistry,  natu- 
ral history — to  physics  and  mathematics  as  well  as 
to  logic,  ethics  and  criticism ;  and  in  these  it  works 
much  beneficient  emancipation  and  reform.  It 
applies  its  revolutionary  method  to  questions  of 
social  order — to  politics,  laws,  the  institutions  of 
public  and  private  life,  to  manners,  marriage,  pro- 
perty, government,  and  finally  to  rehgion.  All 
these  it  undermines ;  the  order  of  the  world  topples 


18  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

over  an  abyss.  From  Montaigne,  Montesquien, 
Yoltaire  and  Eousseau,  to  tlie  last  of  the  Gironde, 
the  leading  minds  of  France — the  centre  and  model 
of  European  civilization — had  labored  in  this  work 
of  undermining  with  the  might  and  brilliancy  of 
fallen  spirits.  "  From  the  seat  of  geometry  to  the 
consecrated  pulpit,"  says  Lamartine,  "the  philoso- 
phy of  the  eighteenth  century  had  invaded  and 
altered  everything.  D'Alembert,  Diderot,  Condor- 
cet,  Bernardin  de  Saint  Pierre,  Helvetius,  La  Harpe 
were  the  church  of  the  new  era.  One  sole  thought 
animated  these  minds — the  revolution  of  ideas. 
Arithmetic,  science,  history,  society,  economy,  poli- 
tics, the  stage,  morals,  poetry — all  seemed  as  a 
vehicle  of  the  modern  philosophy.  It  ran  through 
all  the  veins  of  the  times.  It  had  enlisted  every 
genius,  spoke  every  language." 

From  Louis  XIY.  to  Louis  XYI.  the  age  had  been 
prodigal  of  great  men  in  France.  All  these  an  infidel 
philosophy  had  drawn  within  its  train,  and  formed 
of  them  a  constellation  of  such  brilliancy,  that  it 
drew  the  gaze  and  worship  of  mankind — made  Paris 
the  Pome  or  Babylon  of  European  civilization. 

Amid  these j)liilosophic  anarchs  and  revolutionists, 
Yoltaire,  Pousseau,  Diderot  and  their  com^^eers, 
badly  eminent  as  they  were,  belong  to  the  moderates 
compared  with  the  schools  that  sprang  from  them. 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  19 

Wide  and  fearful  was  tlie  abyss  they  opened;  but 
beneath  that  depth  "  a  lower  deep"  still  yawned — a 
deep  below  the  throne  of  God,  below  the  very 
religion  of  nature.  In  this,  with  infernal  daring  and 
hate,  labored  the  cohort  of  the  atheist  philosophers 
and  anarchs  of  the  revolution,  aiming  to  whelm  in 
one  ruin  not  only  Christianity  and  Deism,  but  all 
moral  distinctions  and  ideas.  Virtue,  vice,  right, 
wrong,  with  moral  government,  law,  retribution, 
marriage,  property — all  were  figments  of  supersti- 
tion, long  mocking  and  vexing  man ;  the  banishment 
of  which,  together  with  the  vanishing  humbugs  of 
God,  Immortality,  Heaven  and  Hell,  was  to  inaugu- 
rate the  Golden  Age.  To  this  foul  crew  belonged 
the  obscene  and  bloody  fanatics  of  unbelief  that 
formed  the  pageant  of  the  Goddess  of  Eeason  of 
1792. 

The  doctrines  of  this  school  are  identified  by 
Menzel,  in  his  History  of  Literature,  with  those  of 
Heine,  who,  though  of  a  subsequent  generation,  may 
be  regarded  as  representative  and  disciple  of  the 
same  school.  His  impious  ravings  are  only  the  echo 
of  the  "  Free  Philosophy,"  so  called,  and  for  conve- 
nience sake,  may  here  be  given  as  a  resume  of  it : 

"  Heine,"  says  Menzel,  "  called  Christianity  a 
miserable  and  bloody  religion  for  criminals,  and 
Christ  a  haggard,  bloody  Jew,  who  had  robbed  the 


20 


THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 


world  of  all  its  joys,  and  destroyed  tlie  beautiful 
religion  of  Paganism."  "  He  paints  before  us  how 
the  whole  garrison  of  Heaven  must  be  put  to  the 
sword.  How  God  is  weltering  in  his  blood,  and 
immortality  is  lying  at  its  last  gasp.  He  declares 
the  distinction  between  good  and  evil  only  a  crazy 
dream  of  Christianity  ;  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
vice ;  that  nature  is  divine ;  that  nature  may  allow 
itself  in  every  indulgence  and  never  sin.  Matter  is 
God.  Sensual  enjoyment  alone  is  holy.  Sensual 
festivals  must  take  the  place  of  Christian  ordinances. 
After  submitting  to  oppression  so  long,  the  senses 
must  avenge  themselves  by  orgies  of  uninterrupted 
debauchery.  All  mankind  must  constitute  them- 
selves into  a  republic  of  the  happy,  and  no  longer 
toil  and  starve,  but  eat  pies,  drink  sack,  and  embrace 
fair  flesh." 

But  enough ;  the  above  may  suffice  to  show  the 
deeps  to  which  the  sensational  philosophy  had  sunk, 
and  was  aiming  to  drag  down  society. 

Thus  everywhere  had  the  disciples  of  the  new 
philosphy  labored  in  their  bad  vocation,  till  they 
had  unsettled  the  faith  of  Christendom,  and  brought 
society  to  the  verge  of  an  abyss.  Thought  every- 
where was  skeptical  and  revolutionary — the  human 
mind  everywhere  insurgent  against  the  traditionary, 
the  old,  the  revered ;  and  everywhere  moving  on 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  21 

over  tlie  wrecks  of  pliilosopliic  systems  and  religious 
faitli,  to  the  destruction  of  all  tlie  outward  forms  and 
the  vital  order  of  society ;  a  deadly  gilded  illusion 
beckoning  it  onward,  and  projecting  a  golden  age  on 
what  proved,  as  the  illusion  faded,  a  dark,  weltering, 
bloody  chaos. 

]N"or  was  this  skeptical  tendency  restricted  to  any 
peculiar  philosophic  school.  The  sensational,  the 
ideal,  the  mystic — the  disciples  of  Des  Cartes  and 
Kant,  as  well  as  of  Locke,  on  the  continent  at  least, 
develop  this  disastrous  bias ;  with  all  degrees  of 
doubting  indeed,  but  all  moving  the  same  darkening 
way  to  absolute  unbelief.  So  much  did  this  melan- 
choly tendency  mark  the  age,  that  those  who  were 
themselves  devout  and  earnest  believers,  seemed, 
through  the  use  or  abuse  of  the  philosophic  systems 
which  they  originated  or  advocated,  transmuted  by 
the  all-pervading  spirit  of  the  age  into  abettors  of 
unbelief  and  irreligion.  Thus  Locke,  Des  Cartes, 
Malebranche,  Leibnitz,  and  even  Fenelon  and  Pas- 
cal by  the  consequences  to  which  their  principles 
were  driven,  seemed  forced  into  strange  coadjutor- 
ship  with  Diderot,  Ilelvetius,  and  Yoltaire.  Hobbes, 
Gassendi,  Kant,  and  Spinoza,  are  succeeded  by 
those  who,  from  the  want  of  harmonizing  and 
limiting  eclecticism,  taking  up  their  principles, 
carried  them  to  wild  extravagances  of  skepticism  and 


22  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

misbelief,  and  not  unfrequently  to  atrocious  disso- 
luteness and  stark  atheism. 

Helvetius,  Holbach,  Hebert,  Chaumette,  Cloots, 
Marat  follow  on.  Finally,  all  ends  in  a  bloody 
debauch  of  blasphemous  anarchy.  As  in  time  of 
pestilence  all  diseases  run  into  the  prevailing  disease 
or  assume  its  type,  so  in  the  eighteenth  century  all 
moral  and  intellectual  distemperatures,  running 
directly  to  religious  skepjticism,  make  it  as  the 
epidemic  malady  of  the  era.  In  England  the 
sensational  philosophy  speedily  becomes  skeptical,  as 
in  case  of  Hobbes  and  Hume.  In  France  the  philo- 
sophy of  Locke  transplanted  had  brought  forth  the 
fruit  of  a  gross  materialism  which  warred  on  God, 
the  soul,  and  immortality — a  mere  creed  of  insurrec- 
tion and  destruction  directed  against  the  social, 
political,  and  religious  world.  Voltaire  and  Kous- 
seau  were  the  great  apostles  of  this  gospel  of 
unbelief;  the  encyclopaedists,  expounders,  and  evan- 
gelists ;  and  from  Paris,  the  philosophic  Jerusalem, 
it  had  gone  forth  to  possess  the  nations, 

*' As  from  the  Python'f  mystic  cave  of  yore, 
The  oracles  that  set  the  world  in  flame, 
Nor  ceased  to  burn  till  kingdoms  were  no  more.'^ 

"The  whole  history  of   the  literary  society  of 
France  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  23 

tury,"  says  Morell,  "  is  but  a  comment  on  tlie 
progress  of  sensationalism  towards  its  ultimate 
climax.  The  school  of  Yoltaire  shows  the  effect  of 
it  while  still  incomplete  and  shrinking  from  the  hard 
materialism,  that  blind  fatality  and  daring  atheism, 
to  which  it  afterward  attained.  But  the  encyclo- 
psedia  is  its  great  embodiment.  Man  is  to  it  but  a 
mass  of  organization ;  mind  the  development  of  our 
sensations ;  morality  is  self-interest,  and  God  the 
diseased  fiction  of  an  unenlightened  and  enthusiastic 
age." 

In  other  countries  of  central  Europe  the  idealism 
of  Des  Cartes  had  passed  through  Spinoza  to  Pan- 
theism, or  had  hardened  to  adamantine  mechanic 
fatalism  ;  or  as  in  Germany,  pushing  all  belief  into 
the  region  of  myths  and  dreams,  it  had  overcast  the 
whole  land  with  doubts  and  phantasms,  till  it  seemed 
as  though  the  ivory  gate  through  which,  according 
to  ancient  fables,  wicked  illusions  and  lying  phan- 
toms went  forth  from  the  underworld  to  abuse  man- 
kind, had  opened  from  underneath  it,  and  had  sent 
forth  glittering  inanities  to  wander  over  Europe. 
The  process  through  which  the  sensational  and  ideal 
systems  alike  led  to  infidelity,  is  not  relevant  to  my 
aim  to  note.  I  mark  simply  as  indicating  the 
tendency  of  the  age,  the  fact  that  both  alike  con- 
ducted to  unbelief. 


24  THE    SKEPTICAL   ERA  I 

Thus  Lad  Philosophy  labored  in  the  eighteenth 
century  in  the  destruction  of  Faith.  She  brought  to 
humanity  vast  blessings.  She  emancipated  the 
human  mind ;  but  in  tearing  down  the  walls  of  its 
prison,  she  tore  down  also  temple  and  throne.  Her 
sons,  a  mighty  brood — mighty  for  good  or  ill — stand 
before  us  in  the  landscape  of  that  age,  like  the  sons 
of  Elder  ISTight  on  the  lightning-blasted  plains  of 
Phlegra. 

"  Their  steep  aim  was  Titan-like,  on  daring  doubts  to  pile, 
Thoughts  which  should  call  down  thunder. 
They  made  themselves  a  fearful  monument, 

The  wreck  of  old  opinion,  things  which  grew 
Breathed  from  the  birth  of  time.    The  veil  they  rent, 
And  what  behind  it  lay,  all  Earth  shall  view. 
But  good  with  ill,  they  also  overthrew, 
Leaving  but  ruins." 

If  we  look  at  other  departments  of  literature,  we 
find  the  same  distemperature  of  skepticism  circulat- 
ing in  the  veins  of  all  of  them.  Through  all 
Belles-lettres  and  fiction  it  insinuated  itself;  from  the 
romance  of  Marmontel,  St.  Pierre  and  the  Heloise 
of 

"The  self-torturing  sophist — wild  Rousseau,  who  knew 
How  to  make  madness  beautiful,  and  cast 
O'er  erring  deeds  and  thoughts  a  heavenly  hue, 
Of  words  like  sunbeams,  dazzling  as  they  passed  j"— 

from  these  to  the  nameless  and  abominable  herd  of 


ITS    CHARACTER    AND    EXTENT.  25 

miscreant  novelists  tliat  drugged  and  intoxicated  the 
French  mind  before  and  in  the  saturn'alia  of  the 
Revokition,  it  pervaded  alL 

Criticism  was  possessed  by  the  same  genius  of 
unbelief.  This  glittered  in  its  wit :  this  hissed  in  its 
sneer.  Dipped  in  its  venom  flew  thick  and  fast  the 
dreaded  shafts  from  Ferney  over  Europe,  striking 
down  the  titled,  the  gifted,  and  the  mighty,  smiting 
alike  monarch  and  mistress,  scholar  and  soldier,  poet 
and  priest. 

Art  was  minister  to  unbelief.  Its  ideas  were 
bodied  in  the  marble  and  glowed  on  the  canvas  or 
breathed  in  music. 

Poetry  sang  of  it.  It  insinuated  itself  through  the 
charm  of  imagination  and  measure,  from  the  epic 
march  of  the  Henriade  and  the  epigrammatic  sneer 
of  the  drama,  to  the  ballad-monger  of  the  Eevoln- 
tion. 

History  was  its  vehicle.'  Through  numerous 
writers  on  the  continent,  as  well  as  Hume  and  Gib- 
bon in  England,  "  sajDping  a  solemn  creed  with  a 
solemn  sneer,"  it  held  the  colored  glass  of  infidelity 
between  the  eye  of  Europe  and  the  most  interesting 
personages  and  periods  in  human  story. 

Eloquence  was  infidel ;  as  in  the  JEolus-cave  of 
ISTational  Convention,  it  stormed  against  monarchs, 
liierarchs,  human  tyrannies  and  even  the  throne  of 

2 


26  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

the  Higliest,  challenging  nnd  arraigning  all;  im- 
pleading at  the  bar  of  a  wrathful  age^  all  the  abuses 
of  the  past,  the  crimes  of  a  lying  faith,  and  of  a 
despotic  Church  and  State,  and  alas,  with  these, 
Christianity  and  Civilization  itself,  for  sentence  and 
execution. 

Tlius  the  pestilence  of  infidelity  had  struck  through 
the  world's  universal  thought.  It  flowed  in  the 
lucid  charm  of  Montaigne,  it  pointed  an  envenomed 
article  in  the  Dictionary  of  Philosophy,  it  breathed 
its  spirit  into  Montesquieu's  Spirit  of  the  Laws,  it 
struck  its  coloring  through  Universal  Science  in  the 
Encyclopaedia.  It  sparkled  in  epigrammatic  impie- 
ties in  the  theatres  of  Paris,  Yienna  and  Petersburg ; 
it  looked  forth  from  the  picture  galleries  of  Yersailles 
and  Potsdam.  It  breathed  through  the  seductive 
profanities  of  Helvetius,  it  glittered  in  the  beautiful 
sophisms  of  the  Social  Contract  and  in  the  tears  of 
the  Letters  from  the  Mountains.  It  spread  its  charm 
through  the  Theophilanthropic  dreams  of  Marmontel 
or  the  sensual  pictures  of  Le  Clos.  It  travelled  and 
meditated  with  Yolney  'mid  ancient  ruins ;  it  shed 
its  false  light  over  Gibbon's  magnificent  pageant  of 
a  past  world,  from  the  moonlight  solitudes  of  the 
mouldering  Coliseum. 

ISTor  did  the  skepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century 
confine  itself  to  writers  and  thinkers.    Power,  place, 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  "  27 

tlie  mode  liacl  become  infidel;  monarcli  and  cour- 
tier, statesman  and  general,  priest  and  prelate 
sported  tlieir  infidelity  in  the  salons  of  Paris,  Berlin, 
Yienna  and  Pej^rsburg.  Catharine  of  Pussia, 
Joseph  of  Austria,  Frederick  of  Prussia,  as  well  as 
the  most  powerful  and  brilliant  figures  of  the  French 
Court,  were  enthusiastic  disciples  and  propagandists 
of  the  new  philosophy.  Frederick  and  Catharine 
were  constant  and  admiring  correspondents  of  Yol- 
taire,  D'Alenibert  and  Diderot,  and  were  wont  to 
close  their  letters  with  the  sobriquet  "  crush  the 
wretch  "  applied  to  Christianity,  and  especially  to  the 
French  Chui'ch.  Frederick  furnished  Yoltaire  an 
ample  establishment  at  Berlin,  and  was  ever  ambi- 
tious of  having  a  coterie  of  infidel  literati  around 
him.  Indeed  Frederick  and  Yoltaire  may  be  taken 
as  representative  types  of  the  era  in  its  crimes,  its 
meanness  and  impiety,  as  well  as  in  its  order  of 
heroism  and  genius.  Catharine  in  her  last  days  saw 
her  error — or  at  least  its  aspect  of  attack  on  despotic 
order  in  Europe — and  grieved  lest  in  consequence  of 
her  encouragement  of  French  philosophy,  she  might 
be  arraigned  in  history  as  the  cause  of  the  Pevolution. 
Graver  crimes,  which  overlaid  this  with  crimson, 
might  have  relieved  her  of  her  fears.  Still,  to  some 
extent  undoubtedly,  she  with  her  fellow  despots  of  that 
age,  would  have  to  plead  guilty  even  to  that  charge. 


28  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

But-  it  is  instructive  and  wortlij  of  remark  liow 
little  aware  were  the  potentates  of  that  period  of  what 
they  were  doing ;  how  nnconsciously  they  admired, 
caressed  and  fawned  on  their  deadliest  foe.  They 
played  and  toyed  with  the  tiger-kitten,  and  admired 
its  sleek  grace  and  velvety  paw,  and  feline  caprices, 
till  at  once  it  stood  before  them  a  full-grown  monster 
whose  scream  for  blood  sent  shuddering  and  paleness 
through  the  Palace  of  Eoyalty  and  the  Chamber  of 
Pleasure. 

I^or  had  infidelity  meanwhile  simply  taken  posses- 
sion of  the  high  places  of  Literature  and  Courts. 
From  the  learned  and  the  noble  it  had  spread 
through  the  masses.  It  had  taken  from  the  oppress- 
ed millions,  their  chief  solace  for  suffering  and  their 
chief  aid  to  virtue,  their  belief  in  God  and  immorta- 
lity. Henceforth  they  had  no  fHend  above,  no 
judge,  no  vindicator  on  high.  This  life  of  woes  and 
shams  and  shames  was  their  all.  It  is  no  wonder  they 
turned  in  the  madness  of  revenge  and  of  desperate 
pleasure-seeking,  on  their  oppressors  and  all  old 
order.  An  awful  responsibility  rests  somewhere  for 
the  frightful  wrongs  wrought  to  the  millions  of  that 
era,  in  the  destruction  of  their  religious  faith;  and 
terrible  was  the  hour  of  retribution  which  could  not 
fail  to  come. 

How  frightfully  diffu-sed  was  not  only  a  disbelief 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  29 

of  religion,  but  a  savage  hate,  a  rage  even  against 
Christianity,  the  insurrections  of  nations  at  the  time 
of  the  French  Revolution  not  only  against  monarchy, 
but  Christianity,  wreaking  their  fanatical  atrocities 
not  only  against  the  Church,  but  against  all  that  was 
called  God,  furnish  terrible  proofs.  This  indeed 
forms  one  of  the  most  melancholy  and  fearful  of  the 
features  of  the  infidelity  of  that  period — the  fact, 
that  unbelief  became  a  fanaticism,^  a  passion  cf 
hatred  and  fury  against  Christianity.  It  is  a  feature 
full  of  significance,  one  demanding  investigation,  and 
which  will  throw  light  upon  the  question  of  the 
cause  of  the  infidelity  of  the  age.  "We  are  arrested 
by  this  feature.  "We  pause  over  it  in  wonder  and 
sorrow.  Why  that  sentiment  of  the  stricken,  blind, 
haggard  millions — that  sentiment  of  unbelief  chang- 
ing to  a  flaming  rage  against  the  great  champion  of 
the  poor  and  the  oppressed — Jesus  Christ?  What 
must  have  been  the  aspect  of  th^t  Christ  exhibited 
by  that  body  that  professed  to  be  his  representative 
among  men — the  church — to  draw  upon  such  a  cha- 
racter the  storming  phrenzy  of  nations  ?  This  is  a 
question  we  have  to  consider,  and  we  shall  be  led  to 
inquire  in  whose  skirts  is  the  blood  of  this  mighty 
guilt.  What  hand  was  it  that  held  up  a  travestied, 
deformed  Christ  before  the  millions  ?  Among  the 
millions  of  what  nominal  communion,  under  what 


30  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

ecclesiastic  banner,  in  tlie  domain  of  what  cliurch, 
did  this  strange  madness  break  out?  But  of  this, 
more  hereafter.  It  suffices  our  present  aim  of 
sketching  with  general  feature  and  coloring  the  phe- 
nomenon we  investigate,  to  note  that  for  some  cause, 
as  we  near  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  this 
melancholy  and  malignant  aspect  of  unbelief  strikes 
us  portentously  everywhere.  Doubt  has  become 
wrath.  The  cold  plague  has  changed  to  phrenzy 
and  fever.  Unbelief  has  itself  become  a  religion, 
armed  with  fanaticism  and  rage.  As  we  look  out  on 
the  nations  of  central  Europe  the  view  seems  fright- 
ful. There  is  a  strange  agitation  of  peoples  insur- 
gent against  Heaven;  a  tumultuous  "noise  of  the 
kingdoms  of  nations  mustering  to  the  battle  against 
the  Most  High  and  His  anointed."  In  the  perspec- 
tive of  that  age,  we  seem  looking  out  on  a  landscape 
stretching  under  the  cope  of  eternal  night ;  where 
the  armies  of  evil  are  battling  against  a  sky  dark  and 
thunderous  with  wrath.  We  have  before  us  Milton's 
terrible  picture  of  the  impious  rage  of  the  fallen 
millions  of  eternal  night  and  woe — that  revel  of 
infinite  rage  and  infinite  despair,  wherein 

"  Outflcw 
"  Millions  of  flaming  swords,  drawn  from  the  thighs 
Of  mighty  cherubim  :  the  sudden  blaze 
Far  round  illumined  Hell ;  highly  they  raged 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  31 

Against  the  highest,  and  fierce  with  grasped  arms, 
Clashed  on  their  sounding  shields  the  din  of  war, 
Hurling  defiance  at  the  vault  of  Heaven." 

Tlie  catastrophe  of  European  states  and  society 
well-nigh  subverting  modern  civilization  itself,  that 
closes  the  eighteenth  century,  does  not  surprise  us. 
As  we  follow  along  the  history  of  governments  and 
of  the  human  mind  during  the  previous  age,  we 
expect  it ;  we  feel  it  is  inevitable ;  we  wait  the  bolt ; 
we  almost  long  for  it — the  bolt  that  is  to  beat  down 
the  insurgent  impiety  of  nations,  that  is  to  punish 
the  masters  and  teachers  of  mankind  for  their  lono- 
abused  trust,  to  avenge  ages  of  wrong  to  humanity, 
and  to  vindicate  the  violated  majesty  of  Heaven. 
Church  and  monarchy  in  Europe,  had  for  centuries 
been  running  up  a  fearful  account  with  God  and 
man.  We  wait  the  bolt  in  awe  and  fear,  but  in 
assurance  it  will  come,  and  when  it  falls  we  seem  to 
hear  the  exult  of  the  apocalypse,  "We  give  Thee 
thanks,  O  Lord  God  Almighty,  who  wast,  and  art, 
and  art  to  come,  because  Thou  hast  taken  to  Tliyself 
Thy  great  power  and  hast  reigned ;  and  the  nations 
were  angry,  and  Thy  wrath  is  come,  and  the  time  of 
the  dead  that  they  should  be  judged,  and  that  lliou 
shouldst  destroy  them  that  destroy  the  earth." 

Such  was  the  prevalence  and  such  some  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  infidelity  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 


32  THE    SKEPTICAL   ERA  : 

tury.  If  we  were  to  attempt  more  specifically  to 
cliaracterize  it,  we  should  say  its  spifit  was  more 
essentially  and  intensely  anti-social  tlian  anti-Chris- 
tian— its  figlit  more  with  facts  than  theories ;  more 
with  the  order  of  the  world  than  even  with  its  creed. 
Its  skepticism  was  social^  ecclesiastical  and  ijolitical 
even  more  than  religions.  Its  primary  impulse  and 
passion  were  against  Institutions.  These  more  than 
dogmas — organisms  more  than  principles,  provoked, 
exasperated  and  oppressed  it,  Christianity  was 
odious  as  the  religion  of  church,  state  and  society, 
even  more  than  as  the  ordinance  and  revelation  of 
God.  Church,  state  and  society,  it  hated  as  vast  and 
oppressive  facts.  It  hated  God  as  their  supposed 
guarantor.  Its  war  was  not  on  them  for  God's 
overthrow,  but  on  Him  as  their  champion.  Though 
beginning  in  the  theoretic  and  speculative,  and 
entrenching  and  arming  itself  with  the  new  philoso- 
phy, it  grew  to  its  terrible  passion  and  power  less  as 
a  dialectic,  than  a  social  birth,  and  was  engaged 
more  with  economies  than  theologies.  It  was  an 
insurrection  of  nations  less  against  Christianity — 
which  indeed  had  been  veiled  and  caricatured  to 
them — than  against  a  spiritual  power,  calling  itself 
of  Christ,  wrought  through  all  the  order  of  the  world, 
and  conservating  and  eternizing  the  most  stupendous 
wrongs,  lies  and  shames.    It  was  on  monstrous  social 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  33 

and  ecclesiastical  disorders  and  corruptions  it  fed,  in 
order  to  grow  to  its  portentous  strength  and  stature. 
It  was  these,  far  more  than  philosophic  theses,  that 
gave  to  it  its  passion  and  force. 

This  union  of  social  with  speculative  skepticism 
will  also  account  for  many  of  the  apparent  contra- 
dictions. It  was  owing  .to  this  that  it  passed  from 
disporting  itself  with  the  speculative  and  the 
abstract  to  a  frantic  war  on  the  actual — that  the  jest 
and  amusement  of  philosophers  and  the  badinage 
and  bon-mots  of  the  savans,  became  the  rage  of  the 
millions.  It  was  because  of  the  abuse  of  Christi- 
anity to  the  political  and  s^Diritual  oppression  of 
nations,  that  religious  skepticism  steps  forth  from  a 
coterie  of  the  salon  to  the  field  of  arms,  and  from  a 
controversy  with  scholastic  subtleties  grows  to  mor- 
tal combat  with  monarchy  and  hierarchy,  and  with 
society  itself.  Thus  also  beginning  with  theophilan- 
thropic  platitudes,  it  ends  in  blasphemies ;  with 
professions  of  fraternity  it  snares  to  massacre,  and  in 
the  name  of  liberty  and  equality  it  erects  the  most 
terrific  tyranny  the  earth  ever  saw. 

^ith  a  prelusive  cant  of  moralities,  it  sinks  into 
the  grossest  sensualism  and  the  vilest  profligacy  ; 
the  epigram  and  moral  tableau  give  place  to  guillo- 
tines and  bayonets ;  the  carnival  of  the  philanthro- 
•    pist  changes  to    the    carnage    of   fratricides;    the 

2* 


34  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

Tencins,  and  Deffancls,  and  the  Eolands  are  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Dames  des  Ilalles ;  and  the  "  Ua7i- 
clies  nuits  "  and  Pagan  orgies  of  the  Kegent  are 
changed  to  the  Jacobin  clnb,  the  I^ational  Assembly, 
the  conciergerie,  and  the  tribunal  of  terror. 

The  origin  and  focus^  the  chief  prevalence  and 
the  climacteric  of  this  moral  plague,  were  in  the 
countries  of  the  E-omish  communion,  and  in  that 
country  especially  where  despotism,  spiritual  and 
political,  if  not  most  absolute  and  complete,  was  at 
least  most  keenly  felt,  because  it  came  in  collision 
with  the  most  advanced  civilization,  and  the  most 
stimulated  and  enlightened  mind  in  Catholic  Europe 
— France.  It  was  in  a  country,  where,  in  conse- 
quence, the  atrocities,  absurdities,  and  scandals  of 
j)ower,  ecclesiastic  and  political,  were  most  vividly 
appreciated  and  resented,  that  the  plague  first  broke 
out. 

It  was  at  a  period,  too,  in  the  history  of  that  coun- 
try when  despotism  was  most  offensive  and  irritating, 
because  the  sceptre  of  absolutism  had  passed  from 
the  mightiest  and  most  brilliant  of  despots,  to  the 
hands  of  the  most  imbecile.  The  profligacy  of 
hierarchy  and  monarchy  provoked  the  bitterer  as 
well  as  bolder  hate,  because  impotency  was  now 
associated  with  arroc^ance. 

It  was  a  country,  too,  where  through  the  alliance 


ITS  CHARACTER  AND  EXTENT.  35 

of  spiritual  and  political  despotisms,  a  nominal 
Christianity  had  been  made  an  accomplice  of  the 
nnspeakable  crnelties,  and  profligacies,  and  scandals 
of  the  hierarchy  and  monarchy  for  a  thousand  years, 
and  which  presented  a  history,  which,  if  not  the 
foulest  and  bloodiest  in  Europe,  was  the  most  so  of 
all  that  had  left  to  the  nations,  amid  whom  they  had 
been  enacted,  life  enough  to  perceive  and  resent 
them.  The  French  Church  was  most  oftensive  to  the 
French  mind,  not  because  one  w^as  w^orst,  or  the 
other  best,  in  Europe,  so  much  as  because  in  France 
there  was  exhibited  a  combination  the  highest 
possible  of  scandals  and  atrocities  in  one,  with  a 
subsisting  vitality  in  the  other. 


36  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 


CHAPTER  ir. 

CAUSES  OF  THE  INFIDELITY  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY, 

A  century  and  a  half  precedent  of  Eeligious  Passion  and  "War ; 
Relaxation,  Exhaustion,  and  Reaction  consequent — Position  of  the 
Religious  Liberties  of  Nations  at  its  close — Dethronement  of  the 
Religious  Idea — Causes  and  Consequences — Religious  Wars — Who 
was  responsible  for  them  and  their  Mischiefs  to  Faith — Aspect  of 
the  World  at  the  opening  of  the  Skeptical  Era  melancholy  and 
portentous — Its  Lessons. 

Such  was  tlie  great  "  Eclipse  of  Faith  "  in  modern 
history.  What  wls  the  cause,  or  what  were  the 
causes  of  this  portentous  phenomenon  ?  Where  lies 
the  terrible  responsibility?  Is  it  with  Protestant- 
ism ?  The  cant  of  a  certain  school  charges  it  there 
— a  cant  so  often  repeated  that  we  suppose  it  has 
come  to  stand  in  the  eyes  of  its  utterers  as  an  estab- 
lished historic  fact ;  though,  as  far  as  we  are  aware, 
from  the  beginning  hitherto,  it  has  been  mere 
allegation  without  proofs.  It  is  contradicted  not 
only  by  the  philosophy  of  the  case,  drawing  conclu- 
sions from  the  essential  principles  and  tendencies  of 
Protestantism,  but  moreover  hj  the  most  patent 
facts,  viz. :  the  origin,  early  foci,  and  the  geographic 


ITS    CAUSES.  37 

theatre  of  the  plague,  as  also  by  the  ecclesiastic 
relations  of  nations  amid  whom  it  raged  earliest, 
longest,  and  most  violently,  and  where  its  deadly 
consequences  continue  most  abundant  this  hour. 
These  certainly  do  not  point  to  Protestantism. 

We  do  not,  therefore,  rush  immediately  to  the 
opposite  conclusion,  that  its  cause  was  Romanism. 
Association  is  not  necessarily  causation.  I^or  is 
simplicity  of  cause  to  be  expected  of  a  phenomenon 
so  •  vast,  complex,  and  multiform.  Its  cause  or 
causes  will  not  probably  be  found  exclusively  with 
any  one  church,  school,  or  country.  The  cause  of 
causes,  looming  up  in  goblin  hideousness,  pre-emi- 
nent we  believe,  will  appear  to  have  been  sjpiritual 
despotism.  But  this  cause  is  Protean  and  cosmopo- 
lite. It  has  other  capitals  besides  the  Eternal  City, 
and  will  produce  its  natural  evil  fruit,  wherever 
found.  The  church  also  is  armed  with  political 
power  and  State  establishments,  in  other  than 
Catholic  countries ;  and  this  alliance  will  produce  its 
disastrous  consequences  in  Prussia  and  England  as 
well  as  in  Austria  and  Prance.  Many  minor  causes 
we  shall  expect  to  find  conspiring  to  the  result.  Of 
these  in  our  present  brief  inquiry,  we  shall  attempt 
an  analysis  only  of  those  most  prominent  and  of 
most  significance  for  our  times. 

And  first  among  these,  I  advert  to  a  cause  that 


38  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA: 

like  a  malignant  atmosphere  embraces  and  stimulates 
to  abnormal  viciousness  and  energy  all  others, 
nourishing  all  morbid  growths ;  sinking  the  vital 
power,  and  giving  an  epidemic  virulence  to  all  the 
moral  distemperatures  of  the  times ;  I  refer  to  a 
general  condition  of  the  European  mind.  It  was  a 
period  of  atony  and  exhaustion  in  the  moral  consti- 
tution of  society ;  one  of  those  times  of  relaxed  and 
feeble  tone,  in  which  diseases  and  cancerous  growths 
naturally  set  in. 

What  may  be  fitly  termed  the  Skeptical  Era  in 
modern  Jiistory  opens  with  reaction  against  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  exalted  religious  senti- 
ment, passion,  and  agonism.  It  was  the  collapse 
after  four  generations  of  religious  wars — the  low 
stage  following  the  fever.  It  borders  immediately 
on  the  great  heroic  and  martyr  era  of  modern 
history ;  an  era  colossal  in  its  ideas  and  its  passions, 
its  virtues  and  its  crimes ;  often  blinded  and  mis- 
guided, yet  ever  intensely  sincere  and  severe,  and 
great  even  in  its  errors ;  whose  faith  now  mounted 
to  enthusiasm  and  vision,  now"  sunk  to  a  lurid 
and  fiery  fanaticism,  but  was  ever  a  real  and  living 
faith; — whose  seriousness  not  seldom  hardened  to 
austerity,  and  whose  solemnity  at  times  deepened 
to  gloom ;  but  there  was  heroism  in  its  austerity  and 
a  grandeur  in  its  gloom.     It  had  seemed  as  if  the 


ITS    CAUSES.  39 

Iminan  theatre,  solemn  with  vaster  than  earthly 
figures  and  mnnclane  interests,  were  lifted  amid  the 
awful  light  and  shade  of  another  world — a  light  and 
shade  streaming  across  it  like  the  unearthly  glare  or 
gloom  in  a  landscape  of  Salvator,  thrown  across  the 
earth  from  masses  of  black  and  broken  thunder-cloud 
floating  in  a  fiery  ether.  The  tremendous  drama 
enacted,  with  its  titanic  personm^  its  vast  forms  of 
Empire,  its  stupendous  destinies,  its  mighty  actors, 
its  Charles  Y.,  Francis  II.,  Elizabeth,  Philip  II.,  the 
Duke  of  Orange,  Ferdinand  II.,  Wallenstein,  Luther, 
Loyola  and  the  like,  grouped  in  a  battle  whose  ques- 
tion compassed  the  fiery  deep  and  the  sapphire 
throne — such  scenes  and  interests  passing  before 
them  had,  for  almost  a  century  and  a  half,  kej)t  the 
religious  sentiment  of  the  world  to  the  tone  of  tragic 
passion,  almost  of  agony.  But  to  a  cycle  of  such 
preternatural  exaltation  and  tension,  relaxation  and 
subsidence  were  inevitable.  Accordingly,  imme- 
diately succeeding  it,  we  enter  an  era  of  reactionary 
and  divergent  movement  in  the  world's  mind.  Like 
Milton's  Satan  emerging  from  hell-gates,  history 
leaves  the  hot  and  lurid  air  of  fanatic  passion,  to 
sink  ten  thousand  fathoms  deep  at  once  in  chill 
mephitic  damp  and  vapor. 

By  that    law  of  action   and  reaction   exhibited 
through  all  history,  the  world's  mind  now  oscillates 


40  THE    SKEPTICAL   ERA  I 

from  intense  earnestness  and  excitement  to  a  frivolous 
apathy,  a  flippant  and  sneering  indifference.  Aus- 
terity had  relaxed  into  dissoluteness,  heroism  had 
dissolved  into  a  fastidious  sybaritism.  The  tragedy 
had  had  its  catastrophe,  the  comedy  and  the  farce 
nov/  enter.  From  the  Baltic  to  the  JVIediterranean, 
and  from  the  Vistula  to  the  Atlantic,  in  the  court 
and  throughout  the  realms  of  the  Stuarts  and  the 
Bourbons,  the  HohenzoUerns,  the  Hapsburgs  and 
the  Romanoffs,  there  seemed  a  transition  from  the 
Sampson  Agonistes  to  the  Comus.  It  was  the  revel 
of  Circe  after  the  battle  of  the  Gods.  The  spirit  of 
the  Age  was  most  unheroic,  egotistical  and  godless. 
In  the  atmosphere  of  such  a  period  skepticism  could 
not  fail  to  have  rapid  growth  and  diffusion.  Every 
cause  tending  to  produce  it  must  have  been  stimu- 
lated to  peculiar  malignancy  and  power. 

But  not  simply  through  tlie  moral  atony  and 
collapse  which  followed  it,  was  the  great  religious 
agonism  of  the  world  during  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  the  cause  of  the  infidelity  of 
the  period  subsequent.  Its  woes  had  bred  disgust ; 
its  crimes  had  produced  revulsion  ;  its  inconsisten- 
cies provoked  incredulity,  and  its  fanaticism,  abhor- 
rence. Its  atrocities  and  fatuities  in  the  name  of 
God  and  Eeligion  had  tended  to  make  both  a  jest  or 
a  horror  to  the  millions ;  and  finally  its  issue  being 


ITS    CAUSES.  41 

a  disawn  battle,  establishing  among  the  nations  to- 
leration from  necessity,  legitimating,  per  force  as 
between  the  European  family  of  States,  a  dissent  that 
was  regarded  as  treason  against  Heaven,  had  begot- 
ten indifference  from  very  impotency  and  despair. 
Eut  on  the  other  hand,  while  establishing  as  hetween 
nations  tolerance  from  impotence,  within  nations  the 
issue  of  that  great  struggle  exhibits  spiritual  despot- 
ism in  the  form  most  adapted  to  breed  incredulity 
and  hate,  viz.  denuded  of  the  defences  of  logic  or 
sentiment  and  stripped  of  the  prestige  of  universality, 
the  associate  of  petty  or  local  tyrannies,  and  upheld 
by  mere  mercenary  military  force.  ISTo  wonder  the 
logic  of  standing  armies  startled  rather  than  tranquil- 
lized the  faith  of  mankind,  nor  that  mankind  began 
to  suspect  that  was  hardly  a  kingdom  of  Truth  that 
was  upborne  by  a  million  of  bayonets. 

The  great  convulsion  of  the  Reformation,  which 
from  the  reign  of  Charles  Y.  to  the  close  of  the  Thirty 
Years  War  presents  the  religious  idea  as  dominant  in 
the  politics  of  Europe,  controlling  its  cabinets,  agitat- 
ing and  swaying  its  millions  and  dashing  nations 
together  in  the  shock  of  arms,  exhibits  at  its  close 
neither  of  the  great  religious  parties  victorious,  but 
each  acquiescing  of  necessity  in  the  existence  and 
national  independency  of  the  other.  The  bloody  gulf 
that  had  swallowed  thirty  millions  of  the  human  race 


42  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

is  at  last  closed  by  the  treaty  of  Westphalia.  This 
political  and  religious  settlement  of  Europe,  leaves 
its  nations  in  an  armed  truce.  Yast  military  mon- 
archies now  appear  on  the  map  of  Christendom,  and 
these  everywhere  associated  with  state  churches. 
The  broken  autocracy  of  the  papacy  crystallizes  into 
national  hierarchies.  The  fallen  sceptre  of  the  pon- 
tificate is  grasped  by  the  hand  of  primate  or  mon- 
arch, l^ations  are  ecclesiastically  independent  of 
each  other;  but  the  millions  crushed  down  under 
the  double  despotism  of  monarch  and  prelate,  are 
kept  down  by  mercenary  myriads  of  bayonets.  To 
them  the  religious  independence  of  nations  only 
aggravates  and  exasperates  the  sense  of  spiritual 
oppression. 

Many  causes  now  conspire  to  make  the  religious 
idea  descend  from  its  sovereignty  over  European 
history.  That  of  wealth  and  of  military  aggrandize- 
ment now  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  rise  to  the 
ascendency  in  the  cabinet  ^^olitics  of  Euroj)e.  Spe- 
culative thought  meanwhile  descends  from  the  sur- 
face of  affairs  to  mine  for  ages  in  the  deeps  below 
society,  and  under  all  the  visible  order  of  the  world ; 
or  it  subtilizes  and  soars  away  to  the  fields  in  the 
upper  Ether,  in  the  dim  and  distant  regions  of 
abstract  to  brew  aloof  from  the  present,  storms  for 
the  future;    there  to  weave   and  plight  and  paint 


ITS    CAUSES.  43 

those  shifting  phantasms  of  glittering  haze  and  fieiy 
vapor  that  shall  descend  on  the  coining  time  in  the 
thnnder-cloud  and  the  tempest. 

The  canses  of  the  dethronement  of  the  religions 
idea  from  Enropean  history  were  varions.  Some  of 
them  as  shedding  light  on  the  era  and  the  question 
we  investigate,  we  will  note  in  passing. 

And,  First.  The  exhaustion,  in  the  long  agonism  of 
society,  of  the  passions  and  sentiments  which  made 
the  religions  idea  sovereign  and  absolute.  The  lim- 
iting law  of  all  intense  excitement  had  obtained. 
The  preternatural  tension  could  not  last  for  ever. 
The  fever  was  spent,  the  fire  had  burned  itself  out. 
A  reaction  towards  religious  indifference  and  to- 
wards other  interests  and  passions,  was  natural. 

Second.  The  utter  hopelessness  of  the  strife  which 
the  rule  of  the  religious  Idea  in  politics  necessitated. 
Universal  ecclesiastical  victory  and  empire  were 
evidently  impossible  for  either  of  the  combatants. 
The  struggle  had  of  itself  created  mighty  Protestant 
states.  Prussia  and  the  I^etherlands  had  sprung  forth 
full-armed  at  their  birth,  to  battle  and  to  victory. 
And  must  the  fight  now  hopeless,  be  eternal  ?  Evi- 
dently then  another  idea  must  take  possession  of  the 
politics  of  the  world ;  and  that  of  religion,  like  all 
dethroned  monarchs,  could  pass  from  sovereignty 
only  to  insignificance  and  contempt,  or  to  imprison- 
ment, exile  or  execution. 


44  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

Third.  Anotlier  cause  was  the  severance  for  the 
time  of  the  Papacy,  from  the  council  chamber  of 
European  politics."  She  had  refused  her  accession  to 
the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  because  of  the  seculariza- 
tion of  Prussia  guarrantied  by  that  settlement  of 
Europe.  Of  course  she  could  arrogate  no  tutelage 
or  guardianship  of  an  adjustment  of  Christendom 
against  which  she  protested,  and  which  she  persisted 
to  ignore.  She  was  necessarily  without  influence  in 
a  system  to  which  she  refused  to  be  a  party.  Her 
protest  thus  isolated  her  among  the  nations  and 
reduced  her  for  the  time  to  political  insignificancy 
and  impotence.  But  it  was  her  arrogation  of  leader- 
ship in  European  politics,  and  her  ambition,  chiefly, 
that  had  given  the  ascendency  to  the  j)olitico-reli- 
gious  idea  in  Europe.  The  agonism  of  nations  was 
antagonism  against  her  usurpation.  Zeal,  often  the 
product  of  danger,  passes  often  with  it. 

Fourth.  Compulsory  endurance  of  dissent  for  a 
century  and  a  half  had  abated  the  horror  with 
which  it  was  regarded  at  first,  and  begot  a  species 
of  tolerance  of  it.  ISTo  fire  from  heaven,  and  no 
strange  curse  overtook  those  whose  creed  was  sup- 
posed to  make  them  hated  of  God  and  cursed  for 
both  worlds.  Men  learned  tolerance  from  familia- 
rity and  from  the  apparent  tolerance  of  heaven. 
But  with  the  ignorant  and  superstitious,  intolerance 
is  wont  to  be  exchanged  only  for  indifi'erence,  and 


ITS    CAUSES.  45 

"bigotry,  for  irreligion.  There  were  other  causes  in 
particular  countries,  which  we  may  not  here  notice 
particularly:  e.  g.^  in  England  there  was  reaction 
against  Puritan  austerity,  and  the  fanaticism  of  reli- 
gious arms.  The  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  with  its 
dissoluteness  and  pusillanimity,  had  succeeded  to  the 
iron  Protectorate,  the  stern  grandeur  of  the  Com- 
monwealth and  the  martyr  age  of  the  First  Charles ; 
and  subsequently  the  persiflage  and  libertinism  of 
Queen  Anne's  court  followed,  with  a  brief  interval 
only  of  more  heroic  temper,  at  the  accession  of  "Wil- 
liam of  Orange. 

France  exhibited  the  relaxation  consequent  on  the 
long  convulsion  of  her  religious  and  civil  wars. 
Tlie  revel  and  intrigue  of  the  oriental  seraglio  had 
succeeded  to  the  heroic  age  of  Henry  lY.  and 
Coligny.  The  stake,  the  dagger  of  the  assassin,  and 
royal  perjury  had  done  their  work.  The  Huguenots 
were  sleeping  in  bloody  graves,  or  had  borne  their 
wrongs  and  hatred  to  foreign  climes.  The  national 
mind  fell  back  into  languor,  frivolity,  and  indiffe- 
rence. 

In  Spain  and  Italy  there  was  no  longer  the 
earnestness  of  a  struggle  against  Protestantism.  The 
Inquisition  had  done  its  work.  From  the  Alps  and 
the  Pyrenees  to  the  Mediterranean  all  was  silent. 
Free  thought  was  smothered  in  blood.     Security, 


46  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

relaxation,  corniptioii,  and  national  decay  were 
following. 

Germany  was  prostrate,  bleeding  from  tlie  thirty 
3^ears  war  :  her  yonth  consumed  ;  whole  climes  deso- 
solate,  and  becoming  again  haunts  of  wild  beasts. 
The  bones  of  her  most  gifted  and  heroic  sons  strew 
the  fatal  battle-lield  from  the-Ealtic  to  the  Rhine, 
the  Alj^s  and  the  Danube,  and  her  very  civilization 
is  beaten  back  half  a  century.  Exhaustion  and 
the  low  stage  have  succeeded  to  the  fever.  More- 
over, throughout  Europe  generally,  the  mercantile 
and  economical  interest  of  nations,  which  now 
becomes  an  ascendant  one,  requires  new  political 
combinations  irrespective  of  religious  predilections 
and  affinities :  e.  g,^  the  combinatians  around  Louis 
XIY.  were  independent  of  the  question  of  religious 
schools.  Each  religious  sect  and  party,  Greek,  Latin, 
Papal,  Protestant,  Turk,  or  Frank,  are  grouped  in 
shifting  confederation  irrespectiA^e  of  ecclesiastical 
affinities. 

From  all  these  causes  a  new  spirit  comes  to  the 
helm  of  affairs.  The  clangor  of  religious  arms  that 
has  resounded  through  a  terrible  century,  ceases. 
The  storm  of  war  that  had  wandered  like  a  fiiry 
through  every  country  of  Europe  from  the  British 
Isles  to  the  Adriatic,  is  at  length  laid.  The  nations 
no  more  slay  each  other  in  the  name  of  the  God  of 


ITS    CAUSES.  47 

Peace.  But  tlie  curses  of  that  strife  still  linger,  not 
only  in  the  desolation  of  the  fairest  portions  of 
Europe,  its  sacked  cities,  wasted  realms,  ruined  cul- 
ture, and  demoralized  civilization  ;  not  only  in  the 
natural  subsidence  of  the  mind  of  nations  into  reli- 
gious indifference  from  both  tlie  exhaustion  and 
hopelessness  of  their  effort  at  religious  empire ;  but 
in  disgust  with  religion  itself,  as  connecting  itself 
with  the  peculiar  atrocities  and  cruelties,  the  fana- 
ticisms and  hypocrisies  of  the  religious  wars. 

All  wars  are  demoralizing ;  but  the  religious  are 
most  corrupting  of  all  wars.  They  are  of  all,  most 
ruthless  or  cruel :  you  pursue  your  enemy  in  them, 
not  merely  as  your  foe,  but  as  a  miscreant  accursed 
of  heaven.  "Why  should  you  show  mercy  where 
your  creed  tells  you  God  himself  shows  none  ?  You 
outlaw  him  from  human  sympathy,  and  drive  him 
from  the  number  of  men.  He  already  ranks  to  you 
with  the  infernals.  The  personal  enemy  now  is 
exalted  to  an  avenger  of  heaven.  Private  revenge, 
cupidity,  and  ambition,  become  consecrated  as  a 
zeal  for  God.  You  avenge  your  own  braved  intole- 
rance and  wounded  pride  as  insults  to  the  Divine 
Majesty.  There  is,  therefore,  in  such  wars  the  least 
of  moderation  or  mercy.  Conscience  lays  down  its 
watch ;  passion  gluts  itself  without  restraint,  and 
the  lusts  of  hell  receive  the  sanction  of  heaven.     A 


48  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

creed,  a  metaphysical  formulary,  x^erliaps,  is  enough 
now  to  baptize  cruelties  which  unsophisticated  nature 
regards  as  purely  devilish.  I  need  not  stop  to  argue 
that  such  wars  must  of  themselves  lead  to  infidelity, 
when  the  madness  of  the  hour  is  passed,  if  men  dare 
to  think.  First,  they  must  breed  this  with  manifold 
other  curses  in  the  corruption  they  engender. 
Again,  what  can  sooner  teach  rejection  of  a  creed 
than  to  see  it  made  the  warrant  for  sordid  lust  and 
horrid  crimes?  What  sooner  compel  me  to  disbe- 
lieve in  God  altogether  than  seeing  Him  made  the 
patron  of  wickedness  ?  You  array  my  moral  nature 
against  Him.  My  immortal  instincts  arise  and  pro- 
test: "Thou,  O  God,  art  of  purer  eyes  than  to 
behold  iniquity."  'No  other  God  will  they  receive. 
They  drive  me  to  infidelity  when  they  make  religion 
to  sanction  revenge  and  cruelty. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  Europe,  with  the  page  of  a 
century  and  a  half  of  religious  wars  before  it,  read 
therein  a  lesson  of  infidelity  and  of  disgust  with  a 
faith  in  whose  name  such  horrors  were  perpetrated. 
!N"or  is  it  a  wonder,  that  with  such  antecedents,  there 
was  in  the  mind  of  the  age  corruption  in  which 
these  lessons  might  readily  take  root. 

All  these  causes  tended  to  produce  a  general 
reaction  in  the  European  mind  towards  indifference 
and    unbelief.      There  was,   therefore,    a    general 


ITS    CAUSES.  49 

relaxation  of  Cliristendom  consequent  on  its  long 
and  intense  paroxysm,  a  relaxation  both  in  religious 
sentiment  and  the  general  tone  of  society.  The 
States  of  Europe  rushed  into  the  game  of  wealth. 
Then  were  courts  immersed  in  schemes  of  economy, 
trade,  and  finance,  or  in  oriental  voluptuousness  and 
seraglio  intrigue;  and  the  Papacy,  meanwhile, 
sinking  back  again  from  the  spasm  of  severer 
morality  and  ecclesiastic  reform  to  which  antagonism 
to  Luther  had  scourged  it,  returned  to  its  old  dissolute- 
ness of  manners,  its  avarice,  corrugation,  and  nepo- 
tism. *^* 

To  all  these  causes  impelling  Christendom  to  the 
verge  of  an  era  of  irreligion,  must  be  added  the 
indifference  naturally  bred  of  the  aspect  of  various 
forms  of  dissent,  living  newly  side  by  side  in  each 
other's  presence ;  just  as  the  strictness  of  moral 
principle  in  great  cities  is  often  impaired  by  the  very 
multitude  and  familiarity  of  practices  violative  of  it, 
which  one  is  compelled  to  witness.  He  that  is 
newly  wonted  to  see  his  faith  and  his  principles 
denied  and  trampled  under  foot  of  multitudes,  is  in 
danger  of  losing  his  own  reverence  and  belief  in 
regard  to  them. 

Finally  we  must  reckon  amid  causes  of  skepticism 
the  confusion  of  ideas  inevitable  on  such  a  great 
"breaking  up  of  the  world's  mind  as  the  Lutheran 

3 


50  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

Eefonnation,  producing  '•  distress  of  nations  with 
perplexity." 

"We  refer  to  these  causes  as  general  ones,  giving 
increased  virulence  to  other  great  agencies,  which  I 
shall  hereafter  notice,  in  plunging  the  world  into 
infidelity. 

Such  were  the  ages  precedent  to  the  skeptical  era, 
such  the  times  of  its  preparation  and  inauguration. 
It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  bloody  cancer  on  a  world 
spent  with  a  century  and  a  half  of  Eeligious  carnage. 
It  was  the  Pale  Horse  of  the  Apocalypse  following 
the  Eed,  and  Hell  was  in  its  train. 

But  before  we  leave  this  topic  we  pause  and  ask 
who  is  responsible — who  is  rightfully  arraigned  at 
the  bar  of  History  for  these  horrible  rehgious 
wars  and  their  baleful  influence  on  religious  belief? 
That  power,  we  are  compelled  to  answer,  whose 
attempted  tyranny  over  belief  caused  them,  pro- 
voked, compelled  and  perpetuated  them,  who  would 
not  allow  to  the  nations  the  natural  rights  of  free 
faith  and  free  worship  without  them — Eome.  Tlie 
ruffian  that  attempts  to  bind  my  hands  and  put  out 
my  eyes,  or  to  keep  me  down  and  fettered  when  I  am 
fallen,  he  is  responsible  and  not  I,  for  the  blood  that 
may  flow  in  my  attempts  to  deliver  and  defend  myself. 

A  power  sat  in  Eome  claiming  the  empire  of  the 
world,  and  there  could  be  no  peace  on  earth  until 


ITS    CAUSES.  51 

slie  should  be  compelled  to  veil  or  at  least  keep  in 
abeyance  that  assumption.  It  took  a  century  and  a 
half  of  war  and  crime,  and  the  exhaustion  of  the 
nations  of  Europe,  to  secure  that  result.  Back  then 
of  those  bloody  ages — pouring  forth  from  the  gates  of 
the  Vatican  as  from  the  ever-open  gates  of  James  of 
old,  the  horrid  plague  of  war  on  Europe — sits  as 
cause,  the  Pontifical  City.  For  these  wars,  and  the 
woes  and  crimes  and  impiety  and  infidelity  they 
wrought,  she  must  bear  the  first  responsibility  at  the 
bar  of  History  and  of  God.  Her  theory— her  prin- 
ciple of  intolerance  and  assumption  of  the  spiritual 
empire  of  Christendom  and  of  the  right  of  the  secular 
sword — ^necessitated  those  wars.  History,  too,  must 
record  that  often  her  practice — her  ambition  and 
intrigue,  fanaticism  and  conspiracy  against  nations 
and  dynasties — drove  the  nations  into  them.  So  far, 
then,  as  those  ages  of  religious  wars  were  the  cause 
of  infidelity,  not  Protestantism  surely  but  her  antago- 
nist, is  primarily  responsible. 

Such  was  Kome's  preeminence  and  priority  of 
position  in  regard  to  this  long  and  sanguinary  strug- 
gle, l^ot  that  she  w^as  always  in  each  instance  the 
first  aggressor,  nor  that  intolerance  and  persecution 
attached  to  her  alone,  nor  that  Protestant  arms  were 
always  guiltless  or  unstained  by  atrocities.  Alas ! 
the  fury  of  Keligious  arms  once  admitted,  the  cup  of 


52  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA! 

blood  onco  tasted,  none  can  answer  for  the  horrors 
that  may  ensue  in  the  intoxication  that  follows. 
J^either  party  can  look  back  on  those  ages  and  say 
I  am  guiltless.  Both  may  say,  ''  verily  we  have 
thought  we  were  doing  God  service  in  w^asting 
accursed  nations."  We  should  judge  men  in  the 
light  of  their  own  age — charitably.  We  should 
judge  principles  in  the  light  of  all  ages — strictly  and 
severely. 

We  have  thus  considered  and  described  the  fact 
we  are  attempting  to  analyze — the  defection  of  the 
human  mind  from  Christianity  in  the  last  century, 
and  the  general  condition  of  the  world's  mind  when 
it  aj)peared.  The  era  of  skepticism  opens  with  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  world  relaxed,  and  its  life- 
pulse  beating  heavy  and  feeble.  Its  tone  is  low; 
the  vital  principle  faint.  It  is  a  time  for  disease  to 
set  in.  The  guardian  forces  of  the  social  system  are 
asleej).  Its  energies  of  resistance  are  paralyzed  and 
the  elements  of  corruption  are  at  w^ork ;  a  dissolution 
is  begun.  We  feel,  as  we  enter  the  period  in  ques- 
tion, that  we  approach  some  melancholy  catastrophe 
of  human  society ;  one  of  those  sad,  chill,  feeble,  foul 
epochs  which  mark  the  decay  and  death  of  nations 
and  civilizations.  Its  type  of  life  and  passion  is 
worn  out,  and  itself  in  collapse.  Chivalry,  honor, 
heroism  and  faith  lie  dying ;  the  mean  and  crawling 


ITS    CAUSES.  53 

vices — the  worms  of  dissolntion  begin   to  appear. 
The  workl  seems  old  and  wan.     The  air  grows  chill, 
the  gloom  thickens.     We  feel  we  are  entering  the 
'pemimlra  of  the  eclijpse  and  the  occultation  of  the 
orb  of  light  and  warmth  is  at  hand.     Thus  the  skep- 
ticle  cycle  impresses  us  as  it  enters.     But  there  are 
also  in  its  aspect  portents  of  change.      Society  is 
torpid,  spent,  faint.     But  we  may  prophesy  for  it, 
there  is  fever  lurking  in  that  ague  stage,  and  mad- 
ness and  delirium  are  couched  in  that  atony.     It  is 
a  world  where   all   things   seem   portentous.      We 
snuff  the  plague  in  that  stagnant  air.     We  feel  death 
in  its  chill  and  its  gloom.      We  feel  the  shadow  of 
the  destroying  angel  on  that  sky.      We  momently 
wait  his  epiphany.     That  sky  we  feel  is  to  kindle  to 
another  hue.       Blood-red  it  rises    before   us,    and 
beneath  it  twenty  millions  of  victims.     We  hear  the 
edict  "  these  millions  for  the  guillotine ;    these  for 
sword ;  for  famine  and  pestilence  and  the  rage  of  the 
elements  these;    and  these  for  madness  and  terror 
and  sorrow  and   shame."      There  is  a  tumult   of 
nations   raging    against   God.       The   abyss     yawns 
under  European  civilization,  and  Hell  from  beneath 
is  stirred  to  meet  the  mighty,  the  gifted,  the  brave, 
the  beautiful,  the  noble,  at  their  coming.     "  Thou 
leheldest  and  drove  asunder  the  nations. — The  deep 
uttered  his  voice ^  and  lifted  iijp  his  hands  on  high — 


54  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  I 

At  the  light  of  thine  arrows  they  went  and  at  the 
shining  of  thy  glittering  spear — So  perish  all  thine 
enemies^  Oh  JehovahP 

But  "before  the  earth  is  ripe  for  tliat  vintage,  this 
low  tone  in  the  world's  life  mnst  pass  to  a  paroxysm 
of  fanatic  atheism,  or  at  least  of  infidelity  raging 
against  Christianity,  We  have  hereafter  to  inquire 
through  what  causes  eminently,  and  in  what  form 
that  baleful  epidemic  of  unbelief  broke  forth  on  such 
an  era  as  we  have  described  and  overspread  the 
earth. 

But  one  lesson  of  solemn  import  the  precursive 
view  we  have  taken  of  our  theme,  teaches  us. 

As  we  close  our  present  survey  of  this  melancholy 
chapter  of  History  we  are  awed  with  the  sense  of  a 
]!Temesis,  celestial  or  infernal,  on  the  track  of  nations. 
The  night-shade  of  infidelity  that  waved  over  a  cycle 
sprang  from  thirty  millions  of  graves.  The  crimson 
carnival  of  revolution  only  alternated  with  and 
avenged  the  auto-da-fe  of  a  world. 

"Would  that  Christendom  might  learn  from  this  sad 
lesson  how  wretched,  futile  and  guilty  is  force  for 
the  extension  of  religion !  Whoso  opens  the  seals  of  a 
religious  war  unlocks  the  bottomless  pit:  he  lets 
loose  a  devil  upon  earth,  whose  chaining  none  may 
foreknow. 

Let  us  be  thankful  that  we  live  in  the  light  of  a 


ITS    CAUSES.  55 

later  period  in  history,  and  let  ns  look  at  the  actors 
in  the  melancholy  drama  in  review,  often  with  pity 
for  their  errors,  and  admir£vtion  for  their  heroism, 
but  detestation,  never  too  strong  for  their  principles 
and  their  policy  in  the  arbitrament  of  questions  of 
religious  faith.  And  let  us  not  forget,  that  in  their 
position,  and  in  the  light  of  their  age,  we  not  impro- 
bably had  been  equally  guilty. 

I  was  about  to  congratulate  you  that  the  gulf  of 
religious  wars  is  closed.  But  I  must  restrain  my 
gratulation.  I  hear  this  very  hour  the  clangor  of 
innumerable  arms  brandished  in  religious  pretence, 
if  not  in  phrensy.  From  the  E'ubian  sands  to  the 
Polar  snows,  from  the  Caucasus  to  the  Atlantic,  I 
hear  the  hum  of  nations  mustering  to  carnage  in  the 
name  of  God  and  religious  faith,  as  well  as  of 
Empire.  Like  a  baleful  meteor  religious  fanaticism 
flames  over  the  advancing  hosts,  mingling  and  bap- 
tizing other  passions.  A  war  of  religion  seems 
again  opened,  and  tidings  from  the  rising  sun  are 
telling  us  the  old  devil  is  again  unchained,  walking 
the  shores  of  the  Euxine  or  flapping  his  red  wing 
o'er  its  wave. 

I  restrict  my  gratulations.  Rather  with  warmer 
gratitude  let  us  thank  God  that  we  live  in  a  country 
where  religious  tolerance  is  not  a  right  wrested  from 
despots  with  a  bloody  hand,  but  seemingly  as  natu- 


56  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA! 

ral  to  our  land  as  our  rivers  and  our  mountains — a 
first  truth^  a  life  ^inci])le  in  our  civilization — a 
tolerance  not  of  indifference^  or  mibelief  or  of  com- 
promise, or  suppression  of  principle,  but  a  tolerance 
where  j)erfect  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  breaks 
the  edge  of  religious  hatred,  and  keeps  religious  pas- 
sions from  out-breaking  violence  and  secret  con- 
spiracy, by  furnishing  them  expression  and  scope  in 
a  fair  and  open  field  of  argument — such  a  field  as 
alone  truth  asks — the  free  lists  of  reason  and  speech. 
May  heaven  ever  keep  those  lists  open.  The 
hand,  the  sect,  the  party  that  in  any  part  of  these 
lands  shall  attempt  to  close  them — let  all  the  people 
curse  it.  Historic  ages  shall  send  down  their 
Amen.  Let  us  never  fear  to  leave  our  Christian 
faith  in  those  lists  with  truth  and  God,  the  human 
mind,  and  the  sacred  Spirit.  Fiercely  as  may  rage 
the  conflict,  with  these  arbiters  and  champions  in  the 
strife,  a  true  faith  need  never  fear.  Its  banner  shall 
float  for  ever  in  our  skies.  If  in  such  a  field  it  falls, 
it  will  be  because  faith  and  liberty  have  no  longer 
place  on  the  earth.  But  living  or  dying,  their  fate 
is  one.  Of  one  birth,  one  cradle,  one  history,  one 
faith,  and  one  freedom — if  fall  they  must,  they  shall 
fall  on  the  same  field,  shrouded  in  the  same  bloody 
banner,  and  bo  buried  in  the  same  grave. 


ITS    CAUSES.  57 


CHAPTEE  III. 

EEYOLUTIOX  m  PHILOSOPHY. 

Revolution  in  Philosophy — A  necessity  of  Social  Progress  perverted 
by  Spiritual  Despotism  to  the  destruction  of  Faith — Protestantism 
a  Revolutionist  in  Philosophy — Different  Philosophic  Methods 
— Aristotelian — Scholastic — Baconian — Mediaeval  Philosophy,  the 
instrument  of  Spiritual  Despotism — Aristotle  and  the  Pope, 
Joint  Monarchs  and  High  Priests  of  thought  and  faith — Revolu- 
tion in  Philosophy,  an  emancipation  of  mind — Its  position  in  the 
Map  of  Modern  History — Eras  of  Religious,  Philosophical,  and. 
Political  Revolution — Futility  and  fruitlessness  of  the  Old  Phi- 
losophy— A  barren  toil  in  an  endless  circle — A  blind  and  fetter  of 
Mind — Its  Overthrow  a  Necessity — Why  it  dragged  Faith  with  it 
in  its  Fall — Different  Results  in  different  Countries — Disasters  to 
Faith,  the  result  of  Spiritual  Despotism — Protestantism  as  Revo- 
lutionist in  Philosophy  a  mighty  Benefactor — Plea  of  the  Baconian 
Philosophy. 

I^  previously  discussing  the  skepticism  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  we  have 
endeavored  to  exhibit  its  wide  prevalence,  some  of 
its  distinctive  characteristics,  and  the  condition  of 
the  world  in  which  it  broke  out  and  spread ;  or  in 
other  words,  the  extent,  type,  and  predisj)Osi?ig 
causes,  of  that  great"  moral  plague. 

"We  have  now  to  consider  a  great  fact  in  European 
history,  which  may  be  termed  an  occasioiial  cause; 


58  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

that  is,  one  not  in  itself  competent  to  the  resfllt,  hut 
having  such  efficiency  only  from  the  accidental 
coincidence  and  co-operation  of  other  causes.  We 
refer  to  the  great  Revolution  in  Philosophy,  that 
inaugurated  the  world's  transition  from  medigeval  to 
modern  history — a  revolution  usually  dated  and 
named  from  Lord  Bacon,  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  although  he  is  not  so  much  the 
author  as  elucidator,  and  instam-ator  of  the  philoso- 
phy that  bears  his  name. 

The  Baconian  method  is  older  than  Bacon — as  old, 
indeed,  as  mind.  It  began  with  the  education  of  the 
first  human  soul.  But  its  enunciation,  exposition, 
and  application  by  Lord  Bacon,  more  especially  in 
the  department  of  physics,  as  afterwards  by  Des 
Cartes  in  metaphysics,  unquestionably  mark  a  signal 
epoch  in  the  history  of  philosophy ;  and  they  were 
followed  directly  by  a  movement  so  rapid,  potent, 
and  radical,  in  the  thinking  and  scientific  world, 
that  we  term  it  a  philosophical  revolution.  This 
revolution  synchronizes  with  another  great  move- 
ment in  the  European  mind — the  Lutheran  Refor- 
mation— to  which  it  stands  also  logically  related 
both  as  cause  and  efi'ect.  Lideed,  the  Reformation 
may  be  considered  as  one  compartment  of  the  vast 
field — one  act  in  the  mighty  drama  of  that  philoso- 
phic revolution,  that  beginning  with  the  first  truths 


ITS    CAUSES.  59 

and  primal  intuitions  of  the  mind,  was  destined  to 
sweep  in  its  scope  the  whole  universe  of  life  and 
action. 

The  enemies  of  the  emancipation  of  intellect  and 
faith,  charge  on  the  religions  reform  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  that  it  produced  the  religion^  skepticism  of 
the  eighteenth,  by  adopting  as  its  logical  instrument 
the  new  philosophical  method — that  it  begat  the 
philosophical  revolution,  and,  through  it,  the  infi- 
delity associated  with  it.  But  of  that  disastrous 
result,  it  was,  in  truth,  only  the  occasional  cause; 
having  its  evil  efficiency  to  that  result,  only  from 
other  causes;  such  as  the  low  and  feeble  tone  in  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  world,  and  the  reaction, 
exhaustion,  and  collapse  following  ages  of  a  preter- 
natural exaltation  of  the  religious  sentiment,  and  of 
the  phrenzy  of  religious  arms.  That  revolution  was 
in  itself  beneficent  and  healthful  and  one  necessary  to 
the  world's  progress  ;  and  it  was  productive  of  irreli- 
gion,  only  as  the  cool  and  bracing  air  may  produce 
fever  in  the  debilitated  body,  or  as  the  genial  arid  vital 
warmth  may  induce  corruption  in  a  corpse.  But  as 
especially  infecting  it  with  a  morbific  and  malignant 
tendency  we  have  to  note  sjnritual  desj^otism — a 
cause  essentially  efficient  of  the  sad  consequence — 
intrinsically,  eternally,  universally  malignant;  cer- 
tain under   all   circumstances   where    it  shall  not 


60  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

absolutely  stifle  mind  to  syncope  or  death,  to  make 
it  unbelieving  or  misbelieving. 

In  pursuance,  therefore,  of  our  general  theme,  we 
pro230se  now  to  discuss  this  revolution  in  philosophy, 
in  its  relations  to  the  skepticism  contemporary  and 
subsequent,  and,  as  far  as  it  was  a  cause  of  that  phe- 
nomenon, to  inquire  why  it  was  so,  and  %Dho  is  res- 
po7is{ble  for  its  being  so. 

But  first  let  us  endeavor  to  give  a  clear  idea  of 
what  we  mean  by  a  revolidioii  in  philosophy.  I^o 
feature  of  the  period  we  are  considering  is  more 
important  to  be  noted  or  rightly  understood. 

By  a  "Ee volution  in  Philosophy"  we  mean  a 
change  in  our  methods  of  investigcdion  or  proof — a 
change  in  the  primary  laws  and  process  of  reasoning 
and  in  our  grounds  of  belief. 

There  are  two  methods  by  which  questions  may 
be  tried  or  a  thing  examined — one,  is  by  looking  at 
the  thing  itself,  its  nature,  properties,  elements, 
causes,  effects,  relations.  The  other,  is  by  turn  in  «- 
over  the  pages  of  authority;  by  inquiring  what  some- 
body else  has  said  or  determined  on  the  subject. 
The  former  method  is  the  analytic,  which  proceeds  by 
taking  things  to  pieces,  and  by  examining  their  intrin- 
sic qualities  and  relations.  The  latter  is  the  dogma- 
tic, which  proceeds  by  inquiring  after  the  dogmas 
or  the  pronounced  judgments  and  transmitted  deci- 


ITS    CAUSES.  61 

sions  of  others.  The  latter  method  obtained  through- 
out Europe  in  whatever  claimed  to  be  science,  in  the 
ages  before  Luther  and  Bacon,  indeed  through  the 
mediseval  period ;  i.  e.  for  more  than  one  thousand 
years. 

The  philosophy  that  arose  based  on  this  method 
was  called  Aristotelian,  not  because  Aristotle  uses 
or  teaches  the  dogmatic  method.  Iso  philosopher 
of  the  ancient,  or,  we  may  say,  even  of  the  modern 
w^orld,  ever  used  the  analytic  or  inductive  mode, 
more  freely  or  more  successfully  than  that  one  of  the 
subtlest,  most  comprehensive,  and  most  analytic  of 
human  intellects. 

The  mediaeval  philosophy  was  called  Aristotelian, 
because  it  referred  to  Aristotle's  teachings  in  logic, 
rhetoric,  ethics,  physics,  etc.,  as  the  finished  authori- 
tative Bible  of  human  knowledge — the  accomj)lished 
possible  of  science — the  perfected  encyclopaedia  of 
results  attainable  by  the  human  intellect. 

It  was  called  scholastic,  from  the  scholastics  or 
schoolmen ;  a  class  of  dialecticians,  mostly  theolo- 
gians and  ecclesiastics,  which  appeared  in  the  dark 
ages,  and  which  constructed  out  of  Aristotle's  philo- 
sophy, a  logic  wdiich  became  the  great  defence  of 
the  Papacy.  It  placed  indeed  the  Pagan,  Greek 
and  the  Latin  Pontiff,  as  joint  monarchs,  on  the  same 
philosophical  throne.    The  Pope  and  Aristotle  w^ere  its 


62  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA.  : 

associate  high  priests ;  the  dialectics  of  the  Stagyrito 
and  the  decretals  of  the  Pontiff  constituted  the  joint 
supreme  oracle  of  human  thought.  Out  of  the 
subtle  analysis,  divisions,  definitions  and  classifica- 
tions of  the  acute  Greek,  the  schoolmen  had  framed 
a  dialectic,  whose  formularies  Avere  only  a  manual 
of  logical  traps,  nets,  tricks,  and  snares,  that  snapped 
you  up  unawares  into  the  admission  of  absurdities 
the  most  palpable ;  schemes  of  casuistic  fence,  of 
cut,  thrust,  feint  and  parry ;  a  system  of  intellectual 
legerdemain,  that  juggled  you  out  of  belief  in  your 
own  eyes  and  ears,  into  acceptance  of  dogmas  con- 
flicting never  so  strongly  with  the  common  sense  and 
irresistible  instinctive  judgment  of  the  mind.  It 
had  become  a  mere  science  of  quibble,  of  sophistical 
subtleties,  of  words  without  things,  and  reasoning 
without  knowledge  of  the  subject  matter.  This 
philosophy  aiding  the  church,  had  in  turn  been  con- 
secrated by  it.  They  upheld  each  other  and  were 
bound  together.  Thus  the  spiritual  power  represent- 
ing Christianity  had  bound  this  philosophy  as  a 
chain  around  the  mind  of  the  world. 

So  it  was  till  the  sixteenth  century.  The  revolu- 
tion in  philosophy  was  the  breaking  of  this  chain — 
the  substitution  of  the  analytic  or  inductive  method 
in  place  of  the  scholastic.  Of  this  revolution  Bacon 
and  Des  Cartes  are  the  great  leaders  in  the  realm  of 


ITS    CAUSES.  63 

pliilosophy ;  Luther  in  liis  reform,  was  its  practical 
asserter  in  the  domain  of  religion.  The  assertion  of 
the  right  of  private  judgment  and  of  the  duty  of  the 
individual  Christian  to  prove  all  things,  necessarily 
overthrew  the  old  philosophy  and  faith  together. 

This  Baconian  or  Cartesian  method,  thus  vindicated, 
is  to  this  day  an  abhorrence  in  the  eyes  of  Rome. 
The  old  philosophy  still  lingers  ghostlike  around  her 
universities,  waiting  the  full  day-break  to  flee.  The 
nations  that  seized  on  the  new  method  and  applied 
it,  have  gone  forward  in  power  at  least — power  in 
the  world  of  thought,  in  science,  reason,  invention, 
administrations  and  power  over  the  material  world, 
such  as  presents  them  almost  as  a  superior  order  of 
beings  compared  with  the  nations  which  have 
rejected  it. 

But  this  intellectual  emancipation  produced  the 
mingled  effects  which  liberty  must  in  a  world  like 
ours.  It  unquestionably  became  abused  to  license 
and  skepticism.  In  casting  away  Aristotle  and  Pope, 
men  unquestionably  did  often  proceed  to  cast  away 
Jesus  Christ,  and  in  revolt  against  the  authority  of 
Eome,  they  cast  away  also  allegiance  to  Christianity 
itself. 

The  question  now  is,  who  is  responsible  for  this?  or 
rather  is  Protestantism,  as  often  cliarged,  the  guilty 
cause  of  it?     Protestantism  rejects  all  authority  in 


64  THE    SKEPTICAL    ERA  : 

matters  of  religious  faith  but  tlie  word  of  God.  Is 
slie  responsible  because  some,  adopting  the  same 
philosophic  method,  in  casting  away  Papal  decretals 
and  Canon  law,  cast  the  Bible  away  with  them  ? 

Macauley  thus  speaks  of  the  alliance  between 
Aristotle's  philosophy  and  the  church,  with  the  con- 
sequences. "  In  the  fifth  century  Christianity  had 
conquered  Paganism,  and  Paganism  had  enfeebled 
Christianity.  The  rites  of  the  Parthenon  passed  into 
the  worship  of  the  Chm-ch;  the  subtleties  of  the 
academy,  into  her  creed.  Similar  trifles  just  as 
subtle,  interminable  and  unprofitable,  occuj^ied  the 
sharp  intellects  of  the  schoolmeru-  At  length  the 
time  had  come  when  the  barren  philosophy  which 
had  worn  so  many  shapes,  mingled  with  so  many 
creeds,  had  survived  empires,  religions,  races,  lan- 
guages, was  destined  to  fall.  Driven  from  its  ancient 
haunts,  it  had  taken  sanctuary  in  that  church  which 
it  at  first  had  persecuted ;  and  like  the  daring  fiends 
of  the  poet 

''Placed  its  seat 

Next  to  the  seat  of  God, 

And  with  its  darljiiess  durst  afifront  His  light." 

Words,  mere  words,  nothing  but  words  had  been 
the  fruit  of  all  the  toil  of  all  the  most  renowned  sages 
of  sixty  generations.     "  In  an  evil  day,"  says  Bacon, 


ITS    CAUSES.  65 

"though  with  great  pomp  and  solemnity,  was  the 
ill-starred  alliance  stricken  between  the  Old  Philoso- 
phy and  the  'New  Faith."  Ill-starred  in  truth  it  was. 
For  the  time  was  to  come  when  it  was  to  hang  like 
a  vast-decayed  column  from  the  temple  it  was  to 
support,  threatening  to  drag  the  whole  structure 
with  it  to  the  dust.  It  was  a  coat  of  mail,  destined 
to  become  a  compress,  preventing  or  distorting  the 
growth,  and  finally  stifling  life.  It  was  an  alliance 
of  the  corruptible  with  the  incorruptible,  the  mortal 
with  immortality,  destined  surely  to  beget  misbelief 
or  unbelief.  "When  one  should  die,  as  die  it  must,  it 
would  seem  to  draw  the  other  into  the  same  grave 
with  it,  as  the  body  the  soul.  Disastrous  consequen- 
ces to  Faith  in  Christianity  itself  could  not  fail  to 
ensue,  when  the  canonized  falsity  should  be  exploded, 
and  the  philosophy  baptized  as  of  God  and  conse- 
crated as  His  ordinance,  should  be  exposed  as  a 
barren  mockery.  But  I  ask,  is  the  party  that  tears 
away  the  mockery  or  the  one  that  vouches  for  its 
substantiality,  responsible  for  those  mischiefs  of  its 
exposure  ? 

l^othing  is  more  common  in  certain  quarters  than 
to  deplore  or  accuse  the  Protestant  Peformation  as 
the  cause,  through  the  new  philosophic  method,  of 
the  infidelity  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  its  clos- 
ing Revolutionary  catastrophe.     It  has  become  the 


66  CAUSE    OP    SKEPTICISM. 

cant  of  a  school,  not  only  of  professed  Romanists, 
but  of  pseudo-Protestant  writers ;  repeated  so  often, 
that  not  only  themselves  believe  it,  but  timid  Pro- 
testants have  begun  often  to  distrust  and  fear  their 
own  principles. 

An  investigation  of  the  case  brings  home  the 
charge  to  the  accusers  themselves.  We  believe  it 
can  be  shown  it  was  the  despotism  attempted  by 
the  spiritual  ]30wer  over  the  human  mind — by  Rome 
— that  was  the  cause  that  the  change  in  philosophiz- 
ing, which  was  requisite  to  the  progress  of  humanity, 
became  a  ruinous  revolution  instead  of  a  gradual 
and  conservative  reform ;  that  she  necessitated  such 
a  result  by  her  treatment  of  the  minds  of  Europe,  in 
the  previous  ages  of  her  despotism  over  the  West. 
It  was  a  necessity  of  civilization  through  her  act. 
But  whether  regarded  or  not  as  a  necessity  of 
civilization,  it  was  at  least  the  great  social  achieve- 
ment of  the  era  we  are  considering — a  vast  step  in 
actual  progress,  though  bearing,  it  may  be,  through 
abysses. 

To  aid  our  apprehension  of  the  important  relations 
of  this  topic,  let  us  look  at  its  position  on  the  map  of 
modern  history. 

Modern  history  from  1500  to  the  present  divides 
itself  into  three  great  periods,  according  to  the  ideas 
that  rule  history  during  those  periods,  and  around 


REVOLUTION  IN  PHILOSOPHY.  67 

which  gather  their  vital  struggle  and  central  interest ; 
viz.  the  periods  of  Eeligiotjs,  Philosophical  and 
Political  Eevolutions.  Dating  modern  history  from 
1500  or  the  beo:innino^  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation, 
the  first  j)eriod  extends  thence  to  1618  or  the  treaty 
of  Westphalia.  The  second,  from  the  treaty  of  West- 
phalia (1618),  to  the  French  Revolution  (1790).  The 
third,  from  the  opening  of  the  French  Revolution  to 
the  present.  The  great  struggle  of  the  first  period 
is  in  the  religious  or  ecclesiastical,  of  the  second  in 
the  philosophical,  the  third  in  the  political  realm. 

The  great  question  of  the  first,  from  1520  to  1648, 
related  to  the  soiorce,  nature^  and  organization^  of 
spiritual  aiothority  and  rule  /  in  the  second  (from 
1648  to  1790),  to  the  fundamental  princijple  and 
philosophical  method  of  all  knowledge  and  lelief  In 
the  third  (1790  to  the  present),  to  the  ])olitical  con- 
stitution and  order^  which  should  be  the  outward 
embodiment  and  representative  of  the  inward  senti- 
ments and  convictions  of  society — the  visiUe  realiza- 
tion in  institutions  of  the  world's  thought  and  helief. 
Each  of  these  steps  or  processes  is  as  necessary  to  the 
series  in  the  great  logic  of  civilization — each  a  seg- 
ment of  the  same  great  stream,  but  each  with  its  own 
peculiar  direction,  impediments,  rapids  and  cata- 
racts. 

The  great  work  of  the  second  period  (1648-1790) 


68  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

that  we  are  now  considering,  summed  up  in  its  bene- 
ficent results,  was  tlie  emancipation  of  the  human 
mind  in  the  reahn  of  philosojohy — the  overthrow  of 
the  Aristotelian,  or  more  properh^,  the  scholastic,  and 
the  establishment  of  the  Baconian  or  analytic  method 
in  all  reasoning.  Or  in  other  words,  it  was  the  legi- 
timation in  society  of  the  inductive  process  and  the 
right  of  private  judgment,  in  all  belief. 

Both  the  above  methods,  the  dogmatic  and  induc- 
tive, in  their  sphere  are  legitimate — either  transcend- 
ing its  sphere  is  pernicious.  Where  God  has  placed 
a  thing  before  me  in  my  view  and  within  my  grasp, 
analysis  is  an  obvious  command  of  reason  and  of 
God.  Where  things  are  beyond  my  vision  and  knowl- 
edge, I  must  receive  them  on  authority  and  testimony 
if  I  receive  them  at  all.  And  where  my  reason 
accepts  a  record  as  from  God,  my  reason  also  binds 
me  to  accept  as  true  what  is  therein  stated.  But  it 
is  obviously  as  unphilosophic  to  call  in  theologic 
authorities  to  settle  for  us,  questions  lying  out  of  the 
scope  of  revelation,  and  in  that  of  mere  human  dis- 
covery, as,  e.  ^.,  those  of  astronomy,  or  mechanics,  or 
chemistry,  as  it  would  be  to  attempt  to  determine 
the  high  mysteries  of  the  invisible  world  and  fiicts 
of  divine  government,  by  geometry,  algebra  and  the 
astronomic  analysis ;  and  he  errs  as  much,  who 
essays  to  determine  whether  the  earth  is  the  centre 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  69 

of  tlie  universe,  anci  the  siiu  revolves  around  it,  or 
vice  versa,  by  consulting  canon  law  and  papal  bulls, 
as  lie  vrlio  should  think  to  call  down  Gabriel  to  work 
out  for  him  a  problem  in  trigonometry.  I  have  no 
more  ric^ht  to  ask  God  to  do  for  me  what  He  has 
given  me  power  to  do  for  myself,  than  I  have  to 
reject  statements  He  has  graciously  been  pleased  to 
make  of  truths  infinitely  and  for  ever  above  my 
mortal  ken. 

But  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  philosophy  of 
authority  had  far  transcended  its  legitimate  bounds 
and  grasped  in  its  j)rerogative  all  departments  of 
human  knowledge.  In  the  name  of  an  infallible 
authority  imparted  of  Heaven,  the  Church  had 
applied  the  clamps  and  meshes  of  a  subtle  scholasti- 
cism, calling  itself  of  Aristotle,  to  all  science ;  had 
usurped  the  j)i'erogative  of  all  truth,  and  put  the 
universal  human  mind  under  censorship :  a  man 
might  be  bm-ned  as  readily  for  a  thesis  in  astro- 
nomy, as  in  theology;  for  the  heresy  of  the  Coper- 
nican  system,  as  for  a  denial  of  transubstantiation. 
Authority  was  called  in  to  settle  everything.  Aris- 
totle's categories  and  dialectics  w^edded  to  Papal 
prerogative — these  formed  a  prison  closure  round 
tlie  world,  beyond  which  reason  or  inquiry  became 
not  only  absurd,  but  impious. 

"Looking  at  the  philosophy  of  modern  times," 


70  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

sajs  Morell  in  liis  History  of  Pliilosoplij,  "  in  con- 
nection with  that  which  for  nearl}^  two  thousand 
years  had  preceded  it,  we  see  it  bearing  the  marks 
of  an  independence,  which  since  the  days  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle  had  been  altogether  unknown.  The 
scholastic  ages  in  particular  were  marked  by  a  well- 
nigh  slavish  deference  to  authority — an  authority 
which  was  balanced  with  some  degree  of  equality 
between  Aristotle  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Pope  on 
the  other.  Philosophy  during  this  period  was  con- 
tent not  only  to  be  held  in  leading-strings,  but  to  be 
nurtured  and  instructed  by  dogmatic  theology  as  an 
obedient  child,  by  its  parent  (i»r  guardian.  It  was 
timid  in  all  its  movements,  feeble  in  its  effects,  and 
felt  so  much  need  of  extraneous  support  that  it  wil- 
lingly sanctioned  an  appeal  to  those  wdio,  the  one  in 
the  ancient,  the  other  in  the  modern  w^orld,  had 
succeeded  in  gaining  the  conlidence  and  subduing 
the  reason  of  mankind." 

"  The  Peformation  was  a  revolt  against  authority, 
and  presented  the  spectacle  of  the  human  reason 
once  more  asserting  its  independence,  and  indignantly 
bursting  the  chains  by  which  it  had  so  long  been 
bound ;  for  whether  we  regard  the  movement  which 
then  took  place,  in  the  religious,  the  political,  or 
philosophical  world,  they  are  alike  characterized  by 
the  same  determination  to  shake  off  the  trammels  of 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  71 

servitude  to  which  the  will  of  humanity  had  for  many 
past  ages  submitted.  It  was  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury (the  Reformation)  that  authorities  which  had 
been  long  doubted  were  openly  disavowed,  that  the 
first  overthrow  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  despotism 
was  given  and  received." 

This  great  achievement  of  the  Reformation  was 
not  only  due  to  the  free  genius  which  pervaded  it,  but 
to  its  ecclesiastic  revolt  from  the  Pope — one  of  the 
great  masters  or  authorities  to  which  scholasticism 
professed  allegiance — and  especially  to  its  bringing 
its  appeal  to  the  private  judgment  of  all  men,  with 
the  open  Bible  in  hand,  presenting  its  warrant  for 
universal  intellectual  liberty  in  the  command  given 
not  to  Apostles  and  Popes,  but  the  Christian  Brother- 
hood, "prove  all  things,  hold  fast  that  which  is 
good." 

A  Revol^ition  in  Philosophy  was  a  necessity  of 
Eurojpean  Civilization. — Society  could  not  advance 
without  it.  The  old  organum — as  the  dialectic  of 
the  old  philosophic  school  was  termed — had  become 
a  mere  fetter  to  humanity ;  inadequate  to  discover 
a  new  truth  or  to  defend  an  old  one,  but  simply  to 
entangle  and  enchain  mind — a  mere  idle,  barren 
gymnastic,  wearying  minds  with  ceaseless  gyrations 
and  cunning  manoeuvre  and  evolution,  but  advancing 
never  a  step. 


72  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

Nothing  is  more  vital  to  society  than  a  true  plii- 
losopliic  m-ethod  or  primary  law  and  process  of 
belief.  ITothing  conld  be  more  fatal  to  real  progress 
than  the  old  method.  It  was  futile,  fruitless  toil  in 
endless  circle.  It  was  rollins;  the  ever-reboundino- 
stone  of  Sisyphus  or  pouring  water  in  the  bottomless 
m-ns  of  the  Danaides.  "Was  a  proposition  in  physics 
or  metaphysics  to  be  determined  ?  The  school-men 
sent  you  not  to  analyze  the  thing,  but  they  coerced  it 
into  the  categories  and  syllabus  of  the  subtle  Greek ; 
they  put  it  into  the  strait-waistcoat  of  some  dialectic 
formula ;  they  put  it  upon  the  rack  and  torture  of 
syllogism  and  enthymeme,  and  finally  bound  it  down 
and  smothered  it  by  the  decrees  of  Councils  and  the 
bulls  of  Popes.  Was  the  inquirer  still  unsatisfied  ? 
The  ponderous  names  of  a  Duns  Scotus,  a  Thomas 
Aqninas,  or  some  Seraphic  Doctor,  or  some  Gregory 
or  Innocent  or  Boniface,  were  made  to  thunder  about 
Lis  ears  with  the  technical  barbarisms  of  a  scholastic 
jargon,  till  overwhelmed  and  confounded,  if  not  con- 
vinced, he  was  glad  to  be  silent,  especially  as  those 
barbarisms  were  no  mere  hndafulmina,  but  behind 
them  was  brandished  before  his  eyes  the  itltima 
ratio  of  spiritual  despots — the  mightier  logic  of  im- 
prisonment, wheel  and  fagot. 

Ages  of  such  processes  manifestly  led  to  nothing — 
certainly  to  no  discovery  or  progress.     The  utterance 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  73 

of  millions  under  force  or  fear  could  prove  nothing, 
discover  nothing.  Indeed  discovery  and  progress 
were  not  the  aim  of  these  processes.  They  were 
rather  devices  to  keep  down  revolt  against  the  intel- 
lectual duarchs  that  ruled  the  world.  The  whole  aim 
was  to  keep  all  things  fast  bound  where  they  were. 

Again  the  talismanic  secret  of  the  old  Logic — its 
wondrous  power  in  the  eyes  of  its  professors  was  in 
\i9>  forms— forms  %oliich  could  dispense  with  the  sub- 
stance of  things  and  with  real  knowledge,  and  were 
in  themselves  a  universal  solvent  for  all  qiiestions^ 
even  of  things  themselves  imhiown — forms  so  won- 
derful, that  you  could  sit  down  in  your  study,  and 
without  telescope  or  celestial  observation,  cypher 
out  the  essences  of  the  stars  or  the  problems  of  the 
moon's  life.  The  adept  had  arrived  at  such  wonder- 
ful sleight  of  logical  technic  and  formulary,  that  in- 
dependent of  all  prior  examination  or  knowledge,  he 
could  extort  the  truth  out  of  any  question,  no  matter 
how  novel  or  mysterious,  how  occult,  awful  or  fanci- 
ful. He  could  tell  you  with  equal  facility  the  popu- 
lation of  Saturn,  the  number  of  feathers  on  the  wing 
of  the  cherubim,  and  how  many  angels  could  stand 
on  the  point  of  a  needle.  Armed  with  these  and  in 
his  own  list,  your  true  scholastic  athlete  was  no  com- 
mon antagonist.  lie  would  snap  up  the  wariest  in 
his  syllogistic  gin  ;  floor  the  doughtiest  with  some 

4 


74  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

nimble  fetcli.  'Now  he  would  distract  yon  with  his 
quick  and  subtle  practice  ;  now  dazzle  3^ou  with  some 
glittering  tenuous  sophism  ;  until  lie  could  thrust  the 
blade  of  some  keen  technic  through  the  joints  of 
your  harness.  Xow,  Aristotle  failing  him,  he  would 
gore  yon  unaware  with  some  pontific  bull ;  now 
brain  you  outright  with  some  ecclesiastical  canon. 
And  if  all  this  would  not  finish  an  adversary,  then 
try  the  illumination  of  fire  !  burn  him  !  or  the  wheel 
and  scourge  may  awaken  his  logical  consciousness, 
or  at  least  the  dungeon  with  its  darkness  and  solitude 
and  fastings,  may  ensure  him  sober  and  clear-brained 
leisure  for  reflecting  on  the  arguments  resisted.  -In- 
deed often  the  theologue  and  schoolman  of  the  mid- 
dle ages  was  in  the  logical  lists  an  antagonist  as 
formidable  as  was  IsTero  in  the  Roman  Circus,  with 
the  Pretorian  Guard  to  back  him,  to  the  unhappy 
contestant  for  the  honors  of  the  fiddle. 

Now  the  end  of  centuries  of  labor  and  conflict  of 
this  kind  could  only  be  words,  words,  words ;  mere 
words,  save  that  their  filmy  and  glittering  maze  was 
a  blind  and  mesh  to  the  mind  of  the  world.  Intel- 
lectual bewilderment,  enslavement  and  stagnation 
could  only  ensue.  Society  could  no  more  advance 
than  Bulwer's  man  that  thought  to  travel  by  end- 
lessly gyrating  on  one  leg.  Progress  by  the  old 
logic  was,  as  if  one  were  to  attempt  to  go  to  New 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  lb 

York  from  St.  Louis,  by  the  way  of  tlic  Mammoth 
Cave.  Wind  about  as  much  as  you  woukl  through 
dark  or  glittering  hibyrinth,  over  flood  and  cliff  and 
through  fairy  grots  or  dim  mysterious  avenues,  toil 
as  you  might  over  rough  or  smooth  and  steeps 
ascending  or  descending,  you  w^ere  certain  at  last  to 
return  on  yourself  and  emerge  where  you  started, 
near  Green  Biver. 

A  new  direction  for  the  intellect  was  needed ;  a 
change  of  fundamental  principles  and  primal  method 
in  the  investigation  of  truth  or  quest  of  knowledge, 
another  "  organuw^^  or  new  instrument  of  reasoning. 
This  was  a  primal  want  of  society — the  first  step 
towards  all  sure  and  permanent  progress.  I  must 
be  assured  my  method  of  reasoning  is  right,  or  I  may 
weary  myself  for  ever  without  discovering  a  principle 
or  ascertaining  a  fact.  Society  had  for  ages  thus 
labored,  adding  not  a  single  science  and  hardly  a  new 
art  or  even  a  new  truth,  for  two  thousand  years. 
The  trouble  was  not  the  want  of  genius  or  labor,  but 
the  method  was  vicious.  A  man  will  never  climb 
Mont  Blanc  by  working  a  treadmill,  work  he  ever 
so  vigorously.  The  world  has  wasted  its  strength  in 
ever  "revolving  questions"  as  Macaulay  calls  them, 
on  controversies  ever  recurring  again,  such  as 
whether  pain  is  an  evil?  whether  all  things  are 
fated?    whether   we   can  be   certain   of  anything? 


76  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

whether  we  can  be  certain  that  we  are  certain  of 
nothing,  &c.  Philosophy  was  battling  over  these 
qnestions  in  the  age  of  Lnther,  as  in  the  age  of 
Socrates,  and  still  no  nearer  the  end  of  the  treadmill. 
An  endless  ronnd  of  sonorons  nothings,  technical 
barbarisms,  casuistical  subtleties,  resounded  in  the 
ears  of  society  as  it  plodded  its  weary  way  over 
"  many  a  frozen,  many  a  fiery  Alp,"  mid  rivers  of 
inky  blackness,  or  eddying  flame  and  phantom 
peopled  wildernesses,  in  endless  mazes  wandering; 
emulating  in  its  bootless  and  ceaseless  toil  the  fabled 
children  of  eternal  night ;  till  at  last  emerging  from 
its  dark  sojourn,  lo  it  finds  itself  just  where  it  started 
w^eary  centuries  ago. 

An  emancipation  of  society  from  a  Philosophy 
that  thus  imprisoned  it,  was  obviously  a  necessity  of 
progress.  Its  achievement  from  some  source,  was 
we  think  a  certainty,  as  well  as  necessity  of  the  ages, 
had  there  been  no  Bacon,  no  Des  Cartes,  no  Luther. 

We  might  then  leave  the  charge  against  Protes- 
tantism, of  causing  infidelity  through  the  philosophic 
method  she  vindicated  and  inaugurated,  with  the 
simple  statement  that  in  this  she  was  only  the  occa- 
sioning cause  of  a  philosojphic  revolution^  necessary 
and  sure  to  come  in  some  way^  hecause  the  life  of 
society  required  it.  But  w^e  do  not  choose  to  leave 
it  there.     Bather  we  accept  the  chai'ge  as  a  panegy- 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  77 

ric,  rather  ^ve  proudly  claim,  to  her  immortal  honor, 
the  glory  of  the  intellectual  emancipation  of  mankind, 
even  with  all  the  evils  incident  thereto. 

But  of  this,  more  hereafter.  We  admit  that  Pro- 
testantism was  an  occasion,  the  great  occasion,  if  you 
please,  of  the  revolution  in  philosophy  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries;  a  revolution,  never- 
theless, w^hich,  as  a  necessity  of  European  civilization 
and  progress,  was  sure  from  some  cause  to  occur. 
The  question  still  remains,  w^hat  made  a  revolution 
thus  necessary  and  inevitable,  so  disastrous  to  reli- 
gious faith  ?  "What  had  so  abused  the  name  of  reli- 
gion before  the  nations,  that  the  emanci^^ation  of 
thought  must  be  an  insurrection  against  God  ?  had 
so  abused  the  human  reason,  that  it  could  not  sepa- 
rate spiritual  enslavement  from  submission  to  the 
authority  of  Heaven  ?  and  could  see  no  pathway  for 
society  between  drivelling  superstition  and  blas- 
phemous rejection  of  all  religion  ?  What  power  had 
made  the  darkness  of  its  dungeon  so  dark,  and  for 
such  ages,  that  when  its  prison- walls  were  broken, 
its  victims  became  blinded  by  the  very  light  ?  What 
power  had  so  inwrought  a  sophistical  and  illusive 
philosophy  with  Christian  truth,  in  tlie  mind  of  the 
world,  that  you  could  not  tear  away  that  j^hilosophy, 
without  dragging  down  with  it  in  ruins  the  temple 
of  God?    Who  had  so  identified  Christianity  wdth 


78  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

the  sterile  system  of  the  schooLnen,  that  the  nations 
must  remain  in  hopeless  feebleness  and  ^^nerilitj,  or, 
as  of  old,  become  inventors  only  by  becoming  like 
the  children  of  Cain?  Certainly,  beyond  all  other 
powers  in  Europe,  she  was  responsible  for  this,  who 
for  one  thousand  years  had  claimed  to  be  intellectual 
and  spiritual  lord  of  mankind. 

I  have  said  Protestantism  was  the  occasion  of  that 
philosophic  revolution.  It  was  so,  inasmuch  as  it 
stirred  the  intellectual  deeps  of  Europe,  and  as  it 
summoned  mankind  in  insurrection  against  a  spirit- 
ual despotism  that  had  indissolubly  bound  up  its 
authority  with  that  of  the  scholastic  philosophy,  so 
that  both  must  stand  or  fall  together. 

It  was  also  obliged,  in  vindication  of  itself  against 
sj^iritual  despotism,  to  adopt,  assert,  and  vindicate 
the  new  philosophy.  It  became,  therefore,  a  great 
champion  and  monument  of  the  Baconian  method. 
So  far,  and  no  further,  does  it  stand  related  as  a 
cause,  through  it,  to  the  infidelity  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  intellect  of  Europe, 
when  emancipated,  ran  often  into  wild,  eccentric, 
and  ruinous  wavs.  It  would  have  been  strano^e,  had 
it  not  done  so.  'Tlie  license  of  the  emancipated  is 
commonly  in  proportion  to  the  severity  of  the  despo- 
tism they  have  endured.     This  is  ever  one  of  the 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  79 

bitterest  curses  of  despotism,  and  one  tliat  most 
nnequivocally  demonstrates  its  intrinsic  and  irreme- 
diable mischievousness.  The  atrocities  and  extrava- 
gances of  liberty  being  thus  the  most  damning  accu- 
sation of  the  precedent  despotism,  how  vehemently  do 
those  of  the  mind  of  Europe,  after  the  emancipation 
of  the  Reformation,  arraign  the  spiritual  tyranny  of 
previous  ages !  The  infidelity  of  Protestant  freedom, 
if  a  proved  fact,  would  be  the  great  opprobrium  of  the 
present  Catholic  despotism.  But  it  is  not  so  much 
the  infidelity  of  Protestant  freedom,  as  the  indignant 
insurrection  of  mind  in  CathollG  Europe  against 
Christianity,  that  presents  the  darkest  picture  of  the 
age  we  are  considering. 

It  results  from  the  necessary  tendency  of  all  transi- 
tion periods  also,  that,  in  such  an  intellectual  break-up 
of  the  world  as  that  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  abnormal  and  irregular  manifestations  of 
every  kind  w^ere  likely  to  appear.  It  is  difficult  for 
the  human  mind  to  stop  in  revolutions.  "When  it 
begins  to  cast  its  false  creeds  and  false  gods  over- 
board, it  is  apt  also  to  throw  away  the  true.  This 
danger  is  incident  to  the  abandonment  of  any  anti- 
quated and  venerated  error  ;  of  course,  to  all  reform 
and  all  progress.  The  safety  with  which  this  danger 
is  passed,  depends  on  the  fidelity  with  which  the 
8j>iritual  and  intellectual  instructors  and  guardians 


80  CAUSE    OP    SKEPTICISM. 

of  a  peojple  have  jjyremously  discTiarged  their  trust. 
There  is  what  Morell  calls  "  the  skepticism  of  igno- 
rance :"  that  is,  the  unbelief  of  a  people,  who,  having 
their  faith  and  veneration  for  a  corrupt  church  and 
spurious  Christianity  destroyed,  and  having  no  know- 
ledge of  the  genuine  to  supply  their  place,  in  their 
ignorance,  rise  in  indignation  and  incredulous  scorn 
against  all  religion.  Such  was  that  of  large  portions 
of  Europe,  and  eminently  that  of  France,  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  "  Sucli,"  says  Morell,  speaking 
of  this  skepticism  of  ignorance,  "  is,  to  a  great  extent, 
the  present  state  of  France.  Happily,  the  diffusion 
of  religious  truth  is  too  general  in  England,  to  admit 
the  return,  except,  indeed,  under  the  most  extraordi- 
nary circumstances,  of  another  age  of  unbelief  in  the 
groundwork  of  man's  natural  religious  sentiments." 
Morell  here  announces  the  cause  and  the  cure  of  this 
species  of  unbelief.  Imperfectly  as  the  spiritual 
curators  and  teachers  of  Britain  had  discharged  their 
trust,  in  consequence  of  her  imperfect  Protestantism, 
still  enough  of  religious  truth  had  been  diffused  to 
save  her,  amid  the  unbelief  that  like  a  storm  swept 
Catholic  France.  If,  on  the  overthrow  of  a  false 
Christianity  and  philosophy  by  the  Lutheran  reform, 
the  skepticism  of  ignorance  entered,  that  power  we 
are  constrained  to  arraign,  as  chiefly  responsible, 
that  for  one  thousand  years  had  been  the  intellectual 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  81 

and  spiritual  dictator  of  Europe,  tlie  liigli  priest  of 
its  faith,  worship,  and  philosoph}^ — Rome.  If  we 
inquire  where  in  Christendom  the  Baconian  philoso- 
phy was  most  abused  to  the  production  of  infidelity, 
and  where  first  and  chiefly  it  became  the  poisoner  of 
the  nations,  where  it  was  perverted  to  the  organ  of  a 
war  on  heaven,  and  an  elaborator  of  infernal  arms^ 
and  where  it  equipped  the  mightiest  actors,  and 
achieved  the  most  hideous  triumphs  in  that  impious 
conflict,  we  are  pointed  at  once  to  the  countries  of 
her  communion,  and  primarily  and  pre-eminently  to 
her  most  powerful  satellite  and  champion  in  Europe — 
France.  Its  fair  realm  became,  under  its  deadly  per- 
version, a  charnel-house.  The  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  I^antz,  and  Bartholomew's  fatal  day,  had 
quenched  in  her  bosom  the  religious  reform,  that 
might  have  enlightened  and  saved  the  philosophic 
reform;  and  had  left  that  reform  to  run  on,  blind, 
wild,  and  godless.  Italy,  Austria,  and  Spain  owed 
their  apparent  comparative  exemption  from  the  same 
disasters  to  the  fact,  that  in  those  countries  religious 
and  philosophical  reform,  together  with  the  reason 
and  life  of  the  nations,  seemed  smothered  in  one 
grave.  The  storm  of  philosophic  revolution  beat 
on  England,  but  beat  as  beats  the  surf  against 
her  island.  The  comparative  enlightenment  of  her 
masses,  imperfect  as  it  was,  and  the  presence  of  well- 


82  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

armed  and  disciplined  cliampions  of  her  faith,  which 
Protestant  liberty  had  prepared,  stood  her  instead  in 
her  honr  of  trial. 

It  was  incidental  also  to  a  revolntion  in  philoso- 
phy, such  as  we  have  above  described,  that  in  the 
application  of  the  new  method,  before  men  had  by 
trial  learned  the  capacity  of  their  instrument  and  the 
limits  of  its  power,  there  should  be  developed  new 
and  partial  systems  of  truth— parts  of  the  great 
myriad-faced  unity — ^but  not  yet  combined  in  har- 
mony. All  partial  systems,  pursued  in  isolation  and 
as  the  alone  true,  must  produce  distortion,  absurdity, 
and  ultimately,  skejDticism.  Such  was  the  case  with 
the  sensational  and  the  ideal  philosophies.  Each 
represented  a  great  truth  ;  one  the  law  of  knowledge 
of  the  outer,  the  other  that  of  the  inner  w^orld ;  but 
either  pursued  exclusively  and  solitarily  necessarily 
led  to  unbelief;  one  to  materialism,  the  other  to 
pantheism. 

Tliis  evil  tendency,  incident  to  young  and  imma- 
ture systems  every  where,  manifests  itself  with 
especial  frecpiency  and  mischief  where  the  mind  of 
nations  is  not  armed  in  a  measure  against  it  by 
previous  indoctrination  in  religious  truth.  Hence 
tliough  both  these  schools  abounded  and  one  origin- 
ated in  England,  they  were  comparatively  innocuous 
till  they  passed  to  the  Catholic  realms  of  the  Conti- 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  83 

nent  or  countries  wliere  Protestantism  abandoned  its 
distinctive  principle  of  spiritual  liberty  for — tbe 
despotism  of  its  antagonist.  It  was  only  wliere 
liberty  was  miwonted,  was  seized  violently,  or  its 
light  broke  in  on  blinded  and  imprisoned  nations, 
that  it  wrought  serious  mischiefs. 

Thus,  looking  at  the  philosophic  revolution  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  as  effective  of 
infidelity,  we  find  the  guilt  of  that  efficiency  resting, 
not  with  Protestantism,  but  the  02:)230site  ecclesiastic 
pole.  That  revolution  was  in  itself  a  blessing.  It 
w^as  made  otherwise  only  by  a  spiritual  despotism, 
paralyzing  and  darkening  the  intellect  and  faith  of 
nations,  and  making  mental  emancipation  wild  and 
mad  from  the  sense  of  long  enslavement  and  from 
the  newness  of  liberty. 

In  conclusion  we  ask  then,  shall  Protestantism, 
having  emancipated  the  human  mind  from  a  thral- 
dom that  bound  up  all  science,  ph^^sical,  metaphysi- 
cal, political  as  w^ell  as  theological,  and  having 
instaurated  a  philosophy  of  progress  to  which  we 
owe  all  improvements,  scientific  and  social,  that 
divide  us  from  ages  of  mediaeval  barbarism, — shall 
she  have  blame,  because  in  so  doing  she  rent  away  a 
subtle  and  adamantine  scholasticism,  with  which 
Rome  had  bound  the  nations  to  her  power;  and 
because,  in  consequence,  a  false  faith  and  a  false 


84  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

philosophy  perished  together?  And  when  nations 
thus  emancipated,  shall,  becanse  of  the  systematic 
darkening  and  rej^ression  of  mind  pursued  by  Rome 
towards  them  for  ages,  stagger  and  wander  into 
strange  and  tortuous  w^ays,  at  first,  in  the  new  light 
and  liberty,  shall  Protestantism  bear  the  sins  of  the 
despotism  she  attempted  to  overthrow  ?  She  found 
the  world  fast  moored  by  the  old  philosophy — moored 
there  for  nearly  two  thousand  years.  She  said,  "  Let 
us  on  upon  our  voj^age."  It  was  a  great  hour  when 
she  thus  said  ''  Let  us  go  on  ;"  she  cut  the  hawsers, 
and,  spite  of  wind  and  wave  and  current  and  storm, 
we  have  moved  on  and  are  still  moving ;  w^e  are  fast 
leaving  the  rocks  of  the  old  coast — the  shoals  and 
quicksands  and  typhoons  of  unbelief  that  wait  round 
those  shores  of  death.  We  have  already  moved 
along  hopefully  and  gloriously,  through  two  centu- 
ries of  the  voyage  of  humanity ;  and,  with  God  and 
Liberty  to  impel  us,  and  an  open  Bible  and  free  rea- 
son for  our  charts,  we  will  go  on  unfearing. 

I  know  there  is  a  spiritual  power  in  Christendom 
that  abhors  light  and  liberty ;  and  rightly ;  it 
instinctively  recognizes  in  them  its  mortal  foes — 
which  studiously  aims  to  darken  nations,  and  natu- 
rally ;  for  darkness  is  the  hiding  of  its  powder; — which 
anathematizes  the  free  press  and  free  speech  and  free 
schools ,  and  reasonably ;  for  it  lives  by  the  repres- 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  85 

sion  of  the  thouglit  and  utterance  of  mankind ; 
within  its  pale  ignorance  is  the  mother  of  devotion — ■ 
at  whose  borders  the  raih-oad  and  telegraph  have 
been  stopped  as  jealously  as  an  invading  plague; 
and  with  right  discernment  of  its  vital  interests ;  for 
society  can  advance  only  over  its  ruins;  with  true 
instinct  it  quarantines  literature  and  cordons  itself, 
as  it  can,  against  ideas ;  for  the  spirit  of  the  age 
would  consume  it  with  the  breath  of  its  mouth,  and 
with  the  brightness  of  its  coming.  ^Naturally,  there- 
fore, it  may  look  to  the  middle  ages  with  regrets,  as 
to  its  lost  millenium ;  and  regard  the  free  movement 
given  to  the  European  mind  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  with  sheer  dismay  and  horror; 
not  unnaturally  it  regards  the  philosophic  revolution 
in  these  centuries,  as  the  opening  of  the  bottomless 
pit  in  the  apocalypse,  darkening  the  skies  of  Europe 
with  its  shapes  and  shades.  But  surely  we,  who 
believe  in  light  and  liberty,  shall  be  slow  to  regard 
them  as  legitimately  responsible  for  the  denial  of  a 
God  and  religion  of  light  and  liberty.  Is  Protes- 
tantism to  be  condemned  for  the  abuses  and  mischiefs 
incident  to  the  emancipation  of  mind  ?  Is  liberty  of 
thought  and  belief  a  curse  ?  Eind  a  man  in  fetters 
and  he  will  run  off  no  precipice.  Put  out  his  eyes 
and  he  will  never  see  false.  Shall  all  men  therefore 
be  blinded  and  shut  up  in  dungeons  ?     Keei3  the  car 


86  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

fast  bound  to  the  station  house,  and  it  will  never  run 
off  the  track.  Is  the  conductor  therefore  that  will 
not  chain  it  up,  responsible  if  it  make  a  somerset 
down  an  embankment,  or  into  a  chasm,  because  of 
some  neglected  switch,  or  a  drawbridge  perversely 
or  maliciously  left  open?  i^o,  give  us  eyes  and 
hands,  and  steam-cars,  and  with  all  their  risk,  we 
thank  you.  So  give  society  and  give  mind,  liberty. 
Let  us  move.  If  we  must  perish,  a  hundred  times 
better  by  the  cataract  than  the  cess-pool. 

Protestantism,  then,  as  a  revolutionist  of  philosophy 
and  emancipator  of  the  intellect  of  Europe,  were  a 
mighty  benefactor ;  even  if  chargeable  with  all  the 
disasters  to  faith,  and  in  consequence  to  society, 
exhibited  in  the  eighteenth  century.  But  she  is  not 
so  chargeable.  They  were  incidental,  some  of  them, 
to  a  transition  period  in  civilization ;  a  stej)  in  philo- 
sophic reform,  which  was  inevitable  and  necessary  to 
social  progress.  I^ay  more,  we  aflirm  these  evils 
were  many  of  them  so  insej)arable  from  that  step, 
because  of  the  abuses  of  that  very  church  which  now 
charges  them  on  Protestantism  as  a  crime  ;  because 
of  its  abuse  of  the  faith  and  worship  of  the  world ; 
its  war  on  enlightenment  and  science,  and  the 
instinctive  rights  of  the  human  soul.  Protestantism 
is  responsible  so  far  as  it  apostatized  from  its  first 
principle,  i.  e.  so  far  forth  as  it  ceased  to  be  Protes- 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  87 

taatism,  joined  in  the  attempt  at  repression  and 
e;*^l?.(;  Client  of  tlie  human  mind,  and  with  the  ene- 
if  .es  f*f  progress, 

"  grew  pale 
Lest  men's  judgments  should  become  too  bright, 
And  their  free  thoughts  be  crimes,  and  earth 
Have  too  much  light.-' 

If  Protestantism  therefore  be  arraigned  for  its  phi- 
■osophy,  as  a  crime,  we  are  willing  that  Philosophy 
should  step  forward  and  plead  her  own  cause.  She 
may  come  before  the  court  of  History  not  merely 
with  intrepidity;  with  ^Wwmj?A  she  may  lift  her 
hand  to  the  great  oath,  that  she  has  merited  well  of 
the  race  of  man.  She  may  say  "  I  am  the  philoso- 
phy of  liberty,  life,  progress.  My  defence — it  is  this 
great  living  world  around  you — this  mighty  present 
that  bears  you  on.  All  that  magnificent  and  infinite 
array  of  improvements  in  industrial  arts,  m  mechan- 
ism, production  and  exchauge ;  all  these  inventions 
and  discoveries  that  arm  man's  hand  with  a  grasp 
and  sway  of  the  forces  of  nature ;  all  those  advances 
in  science,  government,  and  in  the  general  comfort 
and  embellishment,  the  ennoblement  and  culture  of 
life,  that  divide  the  seventeenth  from  the  fifteenth 
century — these  are  my  argument.  I  have  brought 
society  further  in  three  hundred,  than  it  traversed 
before  in  ten  times  tbree  hundred  years.      I  have 


88  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

spangled  over  zones  with  cities  of  macliineiy.     I 
have  made  the  desolate  rock,  and  waste  and  dismal 
morass  to  bloom  with  purple  and  scarlet  and  gold. 
I  have  covered  the  seas  with  fleets  that  are  borne  by 
their  own  tempest  against  wind  and  wave  and  tide. 
I  have  stretched  the  loom  of  commerce  in  wares  and 
ideas,  between  strange  nations  and  across  mj^sterious 
oceans.     I  have  exalted  the  valleys  and  brought  low 
the  heights,  have  pierced  the  mountain,  bridged  vast 
and  torrent  rivers,  and  banded  continents  with  iron 
roads.     I  have  vastly  increased  and  varied  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  earth,  and  the  occupation  and  sup- 
port of  man.     I  have  infinitely  multij^lied  the  manu- 
facture and  diffusion  of  appliances  for  the  well-being 
of  society;    and  have  widened  the   intercourse  of 
business  and  of  thought  among  mankind.    I  mitigate 
disease.     I  disarm  the  plague.      I  draw  off*  silently 
and  innocuously  the  wrath  of  the  thunder-cloud.     I 
steal  from  light  its  pencil ;  I  make  the  lightning  the 
bearer  of  human  thought,  and  the  agent  of  a  univer- 
sal and  simultaneous  consciousness   of  nations.      I 
have  opened  for  man  the  hidden  treasure-house  of 
the  mountains,  the  mysteries  of  the  zones  of  eternal 
frost  and  fire,  and  the  secrets  of  the  seas  and  the 
skies ;  I  have  inaugurated  him,  as  God  decreed  him 
at  first,  Lord  of  nature,  and  I  have  made  him  victor 
of  storm  and  tide,  of  distance  and  solitude,  of  tropic 


REVOLUTION    IN    PHILOSOPHY.  89 

heat  and  polar  ice.  In  the  spiritual  and  ideal  realm 
also,  I  have  placed  man  in  the  paths  of  an  illimitable 
advance.  I  have  imparted  to  him  the  .key  and 
method  of  the  true  Dialectic — the  logic  that  shall 
grasp,  analyze,  and  frame  to  new,  glorious  and  mighty 
forms,  the  subtle  and  shifting  phenomena  of  the 
world  of  thought.  I  have  given  the  laws  of  perpe- 
tual progression  in  intellectual,  moral  and  religious 
truth ;  and  formularies  that  shall  open  to  the  soul 
new  and  wondrous  fields  of  knowledge,  ever  widen- 
ing, as  far  as  is  permitted  the  children  of  this  life  to 
gaze. 

"Modern  Civilization — with  its  legislation,  economy 
and  education,  its  institutions  and  improved  methods 
and  appliances  for  the  elevation  and  enlightenment 
of  the  million — this  is  my  mighty  and  glorious  pupil ; 
and  I  marshal  it  toward  a  future  of  indefinite  gran- 
deur, power  and  beauty.  I  have  created  and  instau- 
rated  for  society  a  science  of  itself,  and  am  placing 
in  its  hands  the  directory  of  an  endless  march  ;  ever 
onward  and  upward,  till  the  philosophy  of  a  new 
dispensation  takes  up  its  instruction  on  the  plains  of 
Heaven.  My  past  achievements  are  but  the  pro- 
mise of  my  infancy.  I  am  yet  but  in  the  Ib^'inuiug 
of  my  ways.  The  boundless  future  is  mine.  I  am 
the  philosophy  of  life  and  growth ;  the  genius  and 
guardian  of  an  infinite  progress  ;  and  especially  the 


90  CAUSE    OF    SKEPTICISM. 

elaborator,  conservator  and  cliampion  of  genuine 
Faitli.  If  I  have  been  abused,  so  liave  all  God's 
gifts — so  has  all  liberty — so  has  light — so  has  life. 
Under  these  skies,  death  alone  has  no  perversion, 
no  insanity,  no  disease." 

We  will  be  content  then,  thus  to  leave  the  philo- 
so]3hy  of  Protestantism  amid  her  own  monuments  to 
plead  her  own  cause ;  confident  that  that  plea  is 
sufficient  vindication  of  that  communion  that  patron- 
izes her. 

The  curse  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies was  not  liberty  or  enlightenment.  It  was  not 
that  the  sun  had  risen,  but  that  an  evil  angel  had 
poured  out  his  vial  of  wrath  on  the  orb  of  light ;  not 
able  thereby  to  quench  it,  but  giving  it  power  to 
burn  men  as  w^ith  fire.  "  And  men  were  scorched 
with  the  great  heat  and  blasphemed  the  God  of 
Heaven." 


MAMMONISH.  91 


CHAPTEE  lY. 

MAMMOXISM, 

Rise  of  the  Idea  of  Wealth  to  the  Ascendency  in  European  Society 
— Causes — Subsidence  of  Religious  Passions — Old  paths  of 
National  Aggrandizement  closed  up— Transfer  of  Ambition  and 
Enterprise  to  new  Desertions — Progress  of  Society  in  Wealth  and 
Productive  Art — The  Era  of  Economies — Mississippi  Schemes — 
East  Indies — Ventures— South  Sea  Bubbles — The  Money-God. 
Supreme — The  new  Philosophy  his  Minister — Acme  of  his  Reign  at 
Paris  under  the  Regent  of  Orleans— Law's  Banking  Scheme—  The 
Saturnalia  of  Mammon — Rise  of  the  Idea  of  Wealth  a  Necessity 
of  Social  Progress — Why  so  Disast^'ous  to  Faith  ? — Money-mania 
in  France  and  England  Compared-  Dangers  to  Modern  Society 
from  Mammonism. 

Another  cause  of  the  infidelity  and  irreligion  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  is  found  in  tlie  new  ideas 
that  tooh  possession  of  European  politics  and  society 
and  in  the  consequent  new  direction  given  to  national 
and  individual  life  and  effort.  From  the  causes 
I  have  already  noticed,  the  great  religious  passion 
and  agonism  of  tho  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centu- 
ries had  subsided.  The  religious  idea  was  dethron- 
ed ;  and  after  the  i^ligio-us  and  political  settlement 
of  Europe  by  the  aea>y  of  Westphalia  a  new  idea 


92  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

and  passion  rise  to  the  ascendency  in  the  European 
mind  ;  namely  those  of  Wealth. 

The  great  conflagration  of  the  religions  wars  had 
burned  out.  Its  fires  had  in  a  measure  died  away  in 
the  council  chamber  and  the  battle-field,  and  in  the 
heart  of  nations.  The  hoj)es  of  decided  ecclesiastical 
victory  and  of  European  empire,  as  between  either 
of  the  great  religious  parties,  had  been  perforce 
abandoned.  The  avenues  to  political  aggrandize- 
ment through  the  alliance  and  aid  of  either  of  these 
parties,  or  by  appeals  to  the  religious  passions  which 
had  animated  them,  had  been  closed  up.  The 
ambition  of  dynasties  and  the  energies  of  nations, 
obstructed  in  these  paths,  henceforth  seek  another 
direction.  By  the  law  of  transfer  in  the  diseases  of 
civilization,  Mammonism  takes  possession  of  the 
European  mind.  The  money-god  sits  supreme  in  all 
temples.  Political  economies  are  his  gos^^els :  and 
of  these  again,  the  new  philosophy  and  the  Encyclo- 
paedists are  expositors. 

ISTot  that  man  had  not  always  loved  money;  or 
that  the  lust  of  gold  is  the  peculiar  vice  of  any  age. 
But  in  this  era,  it  suddenly  towei-s  aJoft.  Supreme 
and  almost  alone  in  the  cabinets  and  amid  tlie 
peoples  of  Europe.  It  takes  a  precedence  liitherto 
unexampled  amid  the  ruling  ideas  of  history  and  the 
passions  of  nations.     We  enter  on  the  birth-era  of 


MAMMONISH.  93 

mercantile,  agricultural  and  manufactural  systems, 
of  navigation  acts,  colonial  policies,  of  tariffs  and 
trade-laws,  of  Mississippi  Schemes,  East  India  com- 
panies, Soutli  Sea  Babbles.  Tlirongli  maritime  dis- 
covery and  adventure,  the  direct  commerce  of  the 
Indies  newly  opened,  the  gold  and  silver  of  Mexico 
and  Peru,  the  progress  of  art,  science  and  industry, 
and  the  general  advancement  of  society,  the  wealth 
of  nations  was  vastly  increased  and  naturally  became 
a  ruling  interest. 

This  new  direction  of  the  ruling  ideas  of  Europe, 
in  a  measure  necessitated  by  the  obstruction  of  old 
paths  of  aggrandizement  and  the  exhaustion  or  des- 
pair of  religious  passions,  was  moreover  especially 
stimulated  by  the  .examples  of  England,  Holland  and 
Portugal.  These  were  regarded  as  signal  illustra- 
tions of  the  power  of  wealth  to  aggrandize  nations  ; 
and  as  brilliant  proofs  of  new  paths  to  national  great- 
ness opened  through  commerce,  manufactures,  colo- 
nies, and  political  economies  regulative  of  the  indus- 
trial energies  of  peoples.  Spain  moreover  was  still 
dazzling  Europe  with  her  delusive  spoils  and  trophies 
of  colonial  empire. 

The  treaty  of  Westphalia,  acljustiug  and  settling 
the  limits  of  countries,  left  little  room  for  territorial 
aggrandizement  on  the  map  of  Europe ;  and  the 
nations  rushed  w^ith  eagerness  into  the  new  game  of 


94  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

greatness  opened  to  them.  They  embark  in  schemes 
of  national  wealth,  domestic  and  foreign.  Through 
mercantile,  mannfactural,  colonial  and  agricultural 
economies,  Christendom  is  to  become  one  vast  plan- 
tation, manufactory,  and  exchange.  Each  county  is 
to  be  husbanded  as  a  garden.  All  art  and  industry 
■ — production,  consumption,  traffic — are  to  be  per- 
fectly systematized  and  mechanized  ;  regulated  as 
methodically  as  if  one  vast  farm-house,  workshop  or 
mart.  In  short,  nations  are  to  become  vast  machines 
adjusted  and  worked  for  the  production  of  wealth. 
Prussia,  in  its  internal  policy,  becomes  especially  the 
model  kingdom  of  this  economic  administration. 
Her  territorial  smallness  was  to  be  elaborated  by 
economies  to  riches  and  greatness.  Smith,  Malthus 
and  the  ecoij^mists  are  the  evangelists  of  the  New 
Era. 

This  direction  of  the  mind  of  Euro]3e  was,  like  its 
emancipation  in  the  realm  of  philosophy,  probably  a 
necessity  of  the  stage  of  civilization  which  it  had 
reached  ;  a  necessary  means  and  consequence  of  the 
rise  of  the  masses  and  the  increased  physical  prospe- 
rity of  nations.  It  was  also — like  the  philosophic 
revolution  sjmchronizing  with  it — productive  of  vast 
benefits  and  vast  mischiefs  to  mankind.  Yast  indus- 
trial enterprises ;  improvements  in  the  arts,  appli- 
ances, comfort  and  power  of  human  life ;  advance- 


MAMMONISH.  95 

ment  in  political  and  social  institutions — in  the 
police,  security,  production,  tlie  greatness  and 
strength  of  nations — follow  in  its  train.  It  stands 
related  as  cause  and  effect  to  the  enfranchisement, 
enlightenment  and  elevation  of  the  millions.  As 
wealth  and  industrial  and  productive  power  rose  in 
the  social  scale,  the  industrial  and  productive  masses 
of  course  rose  also.  But  together  with  those  benefits 
this  supremacy  of  the  idea  of  wealth  undoubtedly 
conspired  powerfully  with  other  causes  to  push  the 
world  from  the  realm  of  faith. 

Mammonism,  or  the  passion  of  wealth,  is  often 
charged  as  the  vice  of  Protestantism,  j  and  with  a 
color  of  truth  ;  as  a  passion  of  wealth  naturally  asso- 
ciates itself  with  the  successful  pursuit  of  it;  with 
the  intelligence,  activity,  and  enterprise  which  are 
produced  and  quickened  by  freedom,  intellectual 
and  civil,  and  which  ensure  success  to  such  pur- 
suits. Protestantism  is  undoubtedly  a  powerful  sti- 
mulant to  the  mind  of  nations;  it  gives  civilization 
a  vastly  increased  power  of  every  kind.  ]^ow 
wealth  and  power  are  wont  to  breed  a  passion  for 
themselves.  And  this  passion,  not  restrained  by  a 
vital  Christianity,  may  become  a  sordid  avarice,  or 
rapacious  ambition.  Still  we  deem  it  no  condemna- 
tion of  a  faith,  that  it  brings  wealth  and  power ; 
especially  as  we  have  ample  evidence  in  the  history 


96  CAUSE    OP    INFIDELITY. 

of  modern  Europe,  tliat  a  church  may  impoverish 
nations  without  protecting  their  piety  or  virtue.  'No 
faith  can  shut  out  the  danger  of  Mammonism,  which 
does  not  shut  out  the  faculty  of  wealth  and  sink  a 
j)eo23le  toward  a  state  of  savageism.  But  the  epide- 
mic Mammonism  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  was  confined  to  the  limits  of  no  commu- 
nion. Indeed  the  acme  of  its  fever  was  in  a  country 
and  capital  of  the  Romish  Faith. 

But  however  caused  and  wherever  it  prevailed,  it 
must  unquestionably  be  noted  as  one  of  the  most 
effective  causes  of  the  general  skepticisni  of  the  age. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  evident  that  the  siij^remacy 
of  the  passion  of  wealth  over  civilization  tends  to 
secularize  and  imsjpiritualize  it — to  make  it  worldly 
and  sensual.  The  declaration  of  our  Saviour  "ye 
cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon,"  holds  ever  true. 
If  men  cleave  to  the  one,  they  will  despise  the  other. 
If  Mammon  is  enthroned,  the  face  of  Jehovah  fades 
from  the  sky.  The  lust  of  gain,  as  a  supreme  prin- 
ciple of  action  and  pursuit,  degrades  and  corrupts 
the  soul  of  the  individual  or  the  age.  It  is  the  most 
nnheroic  of  passions.  Magnanimity,  sincerity,  and 
generous  sentiment,  it  wars  on.  Cunning,  adroitness, 
finesse,  are  its  virtues.  Fraud,  treachery,  simulation, 
cold  selfishness,  are  its  means  and  ministers.  It 
breeds  a  distrust  of  truth  and  heroism.     Of  course  it 


MAMMONISM.  97 

is  most  widely  at  variance  with,  the  genius  of  Christ- 
ianity, and  little  attracted  to  accept  it.  Most  diffi- 
cult is  it  for  it,  of  all  passions,  to  "enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven."  It  breeds  moreover  passions 
and  vices  which  naturally  seek  to  hide  from  God 
behind  the  veil  of  skepticism.  It  soon  leaves  little 
power  of  faith  in  anything  noble  and  good,  much 
less  in  God.  There  is  terrible  interaction  between 
avarice  and  infidelity,  as  between  corruption  and 
death :  one  breeds  the  other. 

Moreover  the  ascendency  of  this  idea  over  society 
naturally  associates  with  itself  a  luxury  which  emas- 
culates and  debauches  the  soul,  and  leaves  it  hardly 
energy  or  manhood  for  earnest  Christian  belief. 

Thus  the  supremacy  of  the  idea  of  wealth  divides 
society  more  and  more  widely  from  religious  faith. 
Long  ascendant,  it  relaxes,  enfeebles,  corru^^ts,  intoxi- 
cates it ;  till  ultimately  it  goes  into  utter  dissolution. 
This  was  illustrated  in  the  course  of  civilization  in 
the  eighteenth  century  from  the  various  causes  enu- 
merated. The  lust  of  gold  had  rusted  and  corroded 
through  the  entire  society  of  the  times.  The 
mightier  and  nobler  false  gods  had  disappeared  from 
their  shrines.  Mammon,  the  "  meanest  and  least 
erect  of  spirits  that  fell  from  Heaven,"  alone 
remained.  The  generous  fever  of  the  previous  era 
had  subsided.    The  pulse  of  humanity  beat  low ;  a 

5 


98  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

slow  cold  corrupting  palsy  was  icing  stealthily  around 
the  heart  and  brain.  I^ot  now  for  God  or  glory  or 
for  beauty,  but  for  gain  were  all  things.  For  this 
men  fought  and  plotted  and  chaffered  ;  for  this  they 
made  treaties,  alliances,  peace  and  war;  for  this 
they  legislated,  planted  colonies,  established  manu- 
factures, tariffs,  trade-laws,  colonial  and  commercial 
systems,  coerced  agriculture,  instituted  banks,  in- 
flated and  ex23loded  financial  bubbles.  For  this  they 
explored  new  seas  and  savage  continents ;  they 
ravaged  ancient  realms;  plundered  barbaric  mon- 
archies ;  they  dismembered  kingdoms  ;  they  blotted 
old  nationalities  from  the  map  of  Europe  ;  they  pros- 
trated the  public  law  and  political  system  of  Europe 
in  the  dust.  Everything  revolved  around  the  money 
question.  ITegotiation,  legislation,  foreign  and  in- 
ternal policies,  fulfillment  or  violation  of  treaties, 
manners,  sentiment,  opinions,  literature,  morality, 
and  even  religion,  seemed  grouped  waiting  around 
the  question,  will  it  pay?  All  things  had  their 
money-representative  and  equivalent.  Faith,  honor, 
heroism,  patriotism,  justice,  chastity,  piety — all  had 
their  prices.  Power,  empire,  beauty,  fame,  grace, 
the  favor  of  man,  and  even  of  God,  were  exposed  for 
gale.  Courts,  monarchs,  hierarchs,  pontiffs,  the 
church,  and  even  Heaven  itself  in  .priestly  finance, 
were  venal.      Genius,  wit,  taste,  imagination,  elo- 


MAMMONISM.  99 

quence  and  song,  philosophy  and  statesmanship, 
ministered,  liveried  and  lacquered,  in  the  antecham- 
ber of  Mammon.  Finance  was  god  of  the  world, 
from  hovel  to  palace,  possessing  each  interest.  In 
his  train  waited  frauds,  treacheries,  disloyalties, 
hypocrisies  ;  rapacity  joined  with  waste,  luxury  with 
cruelty,  pleasure  mottled  with  murder,  and  "lust 
hard  by  hate."  It  was  the  reign  of  the  money  god 
who  had  taken  possession  of  the  vacant  temple  of 
European  worship  and  the  nations  were  prostrate 
before  him. 

"  On  a  blazing  throne  of  gems  and  gold, 
The  prize  of  manj  a  damned  soul, 
There  sat  a  king  deformed  and  old. 
Yellow  and  shrunk  and  foul : 
The  glittering  bribe,  the  tempting  purse 
Spread  there  their  unresisted  lure, 
For  baits  to  prove  the  proud  man's  curse. 
And  keep  the  miser  poor. 
In  his  palsied  hand  the  monarch  gave 
The  radiant  stone  and  blushing  ore. 
To  mighty  prince,  and  grovelling  slave. 
That  knelt  his  throne  before ; 
Gorging  their  food  like  worms  i'  the  grave 
And  screaming  loud  for  more. 

"  As  amongst  that  cursed  and  greedy  crew 
The  murderer  thrust  his  blood-stained  hands, 
Where  Beauty's  palms  of  lily  hue 
The  price  of  guilt  demands  : 


100  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Sia  caught  the  despot  in  her  arms, 

And  kissed  his  slimy  jaws, 

And  shame  exposed  her  wanton  charms, 

To  gain  his  prized  applause  : 

There  the  hero  brought  his  hireling  steel, 

The  bard  his  venal  song, 

^hWe  patriots  sold  the  public  weal, 

The  tyrants  cherished  wrong  ; 

Monks  uttered  blasphemies  to  kneel  , 

The  favored  of  that  throng. 

"And  they  all  devoured  this  precious  food 
With  more  than  human  zest, 
Though  bringing  poison  to  the  blood 
And  anguish  to  the  breast : 
Like  vultures  upon  carrion  fare, 
They  greedily  fed  on  ; 
And  fiercely  seized  their  neighbor's  share 
Whene'er  their  own  was  gone  : 
As  that  crowned  ghoul  his  gifts  bestowed 
With  regal  pomp  and  pride  ; 
From  those  foul  lips  no  language  flowed, 
But  still  the  dupes  he  eyed, 
Hurrying  on  to  death's  abode, 
And  cursed  them  as  they  died  ; 
Shouting,  '  Hail,  Oh  first  of  the  sons  of  Ammon! 
Hail  to  the  great  god  Mammon !'  " 

In  such  a  world,  where  the  lust  of  gold  had  suc- 
ceeded to  religious  enthusiasm  and  fanaticism,  we  do 
not  wonder  that  faith  could  not  abide.  Nor  again 
can  we  wonder  that  rapacity,  cut  loose  from  the 


MAMMONISM.  101 

restraints  of  faith,  should  have  gone  forth  to  make 
society  desolate  of  the  common  virtues,  and  tear 
down  the  pillars  of  social  order;  to  fill  the  seas  with 
rapine,  plunder  and  slay  states  and  tear  to  shreds 
the  public  law  of  the  world.  We  do  not  wonder 
that  provinces  were  estimated  at  the  productive  and 
taxable  energies  of  the  human  machines  in  them,  and 
were  bargained  and  transferred  like  herds  of  cattle- 
We  do  not  wonder  at  finding  infidel  monarchs, 
ecclesiastics  and  philosophers  uniting  in  their  con- 
spiracy against  religion  and  law,  now  fraternizing 
in  the  revel  of  impiety,  now  plotting  each  other's 
robbery — as  in  case  of  the  conspiracies  of  regal 
scoundrels  for  the  dismemberment  of  Austria,  Bava- 
ria and  Prussia — now  pointing  a  witticism  at  Jesus 
Christ,  and  now  pouring  their  ruffian  armies  upon 
Poland ;  now  crowned  with  chaplets  in  the  flower- 
festivals  of  the  goddess  of  Reason,  singing  ballads 
preluding  the  advent  of  the  godless  golden  age  ; 
now  mingling  in  the  bloody  orgies  of  revolution  that 
seemed  to  have  torn  open  the  infernal  abyss. 

This  money-mania  seems,  like  almost  all  distemper- 
atures  in  modern  civilization,  to  have  exhibited  the 
acme  of  its  madness  at  Paris.  This  took  place  early 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  under  the  excitement  of 
Law's  famous  banking  scheme,  in  the  time  of  the 
Regent  of  Orleans — a  scheme  which   dazzled  and 


102  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

attracted  all  Em-ope  with  the  enormousness  of  its 
powers,  prizes  and  promises.  The  scheme  was  to  paj 
off  two  thousand  millions  of  the  debt  of  Louis  XIY. 
by  a  single  splendid  stroke  of  finance.  The  bank  was 
to  be  shored  up  by  the  commerce  of  the  East  and 
West  Indies,  and  that  of  empires  that  were  to  spring 
■up  in  the  vast  and  mysterious  Eldorado  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. The  imaginations  of  men  were  astounded 
with  the.  magnificent  hopes  opening  to  them.  It 
was  as  if  an  Australia  or  California  were  opened 
right  in  the  capital  of  European  civilization.  At 
the  time  of  the  sale  of  the  shares  in  1719,  the  scene 
as  described  by  Louis  Blanc,  indicates  that  the  force 
of  the  madness  could  no  further  go. 

In  his  History  of  the  Causes  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion (page  175)  he  thus  narrates : — • 

"  We  would  surpass  the  limits  of  our  subject  were 
we  to  follow  all  the  details  of  so  vast  an  operation. 
But  the  effect  which  it  produced  has  a  too  direct 
connection  with  that  transformation  of  manners  and 
that  displacement  of  strength,  out  of  which  the  revo- 
lution was  to  spring,  for  us  not  to  pause  over  it. 

"  The  excitement  caused  by  the  sale  of  the  shares 
was  intense.  Who  has  not  heard  of  the  Rue  Quin- 
campoix  and  its  stormy  renown?  Impatience  of 
gain,  the  hope  of  retrieving  a  ruined  fortune  quickly, 
a  presumptuous  desire  to  brave  destiny,  a  need  of 


MAMMONISH.  103 

forgetfulness  and  of  excitement,  the  poignant  uncer- 
tainties which  the  heart  in  its  folly  dreads  and  seeks, 
the  torments  of  which  it  is  greedy,  were  all  found 
strongly  raised  and  at  play,  within  the  space  of  a  few 
feet.  Thus,  courtiers,  churchmen,  courtesans,  mem- 
bers, of  parliament,  monks,  abbes,  clerks,  soldiers, 
adventurers  from  e^yery  part  of  Europe,  hastened  to 
the  Eue  Quincampoix,  to  be  rolled  in  a  heap  and 
mingled  together  in  a  huge  pell-mell.  The  inequa- 
lity of  ranks  disappeared  there  before  the  equality 
of  human  w^eakn esses  and  passions.  The  pride  of 
the  great  ones  of  the  earth  was  publicly  drawn  out 
to  receive  an  exemplary  chastisement  in  the  eyes  of 
the  multitude.  Fraternity  reigned  through  stock- 
jobbing until  something  better  turned  up.  Prelates 
dragged  the  Roman  purple  through  the  mob,  and 
princes  of  the  blood  bought  or  sold  the  papei 
between  courtesans  and  lackeys.  Even  foreign  sov- 
ereigns had  their  representatives  in  the  thickest  of 
this  crowd,  which  was  by  turns  drunk  with  hope  or 
frozen  by  alarm,  a  confused,  entangled,  palpitating 
crowd,  which  the  ebb  and  flow  of  play  agitated 
incessantly,  and  from  which  a  sinister  noise  arose. 
There  was  not  a  house  in  the  famous  street  which 
was  not  divided  into  dens  for  speculators.  Avidity 
took  up  its  abode  in  them  from  the  roof  to  the  cellar. 
They  stock-gambled  by  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  also 


104  CAUSE    OF   INFIDELITY. 

by  that  of  torclies.  To  own  a  miserable  shop  in  this 
quarter,  was  to  have  one's  hand  upon  a  gold  mine. 
*  -jf  *  -jf  There  were  offices  for  sale  and  pur- 
chase; here  was  that  of  the  Sieur  le  Grand,  the 
treasurer  of  France,  there  that  of  the  Sieur  Xcgret 
de  Granville,  an  old  farmer  of  the  aids  and  domains. 
A  place  was  wanted  to  write  upon;  they  had 
recourse  to  living  desks,  and  the  unfortunate  made 
fortunes  by  hiring  out  their  shoulders ;  they  would 
have  hired  their  souls ;  as  long  as  the  fever  lasted, 
paper  had  the  advantage  over  gold  which  the  imag- 
ination has  over  the  reality.  Thus  two  men  drew 
their  swords  one  day  in  the  street,  the  seller  of  shares 
wishing  to  be  paid  in  paper,  and  the  buyer  of  them 
wishing  to  pay  in  gold.  The  confusion  soon  became 
so  great,  that  it  became  necessary  to  have  a  guard 
of  archers,  commanded  by  an  officer  of  the  Short 
Il#be,  at  each  end  of  the  street.  Regular  agitations 
still  more  terrible  succeeded  this  tumultuous  agita- 
tion. The  Le  Blancs,  the  Yerzenobres,  the  Andres, 
the  Pavilions,  the  Fleurys,  commanded  the  move- 
ments by  their  emissaries,  and  kept  the  key  of  the 
storm- bag.  *  ■»  *  *  ^^  There  w^as  a  general 
upsetting  of  fortunes ;  there  was  a  metamorphosis  in 
situations,  comparable  only  with  the  ancient  Satur- 
nalia. *  *  *  *  The  Duke  de  Bourbon  and  the 
Prince  de  Conti,  were  at  the  head  of  the  speculators 


MAMMONISH.  105 

of  renown,  and  the  nobles  followed  in  crowds.  Many 
of  the  gentry  snrrounded  the  door  of  Law,  the  chief 
distributor  of  subscriptions,  and  passed  whole  hours 
tliere  waiting  for  Law's  presence,  with  a  sordid 
anxiety,  begging  a  look  from  him  as  a  fevor,  and 
wearying  his  contempt  by  the  excess  and  degrada- 
tion of  their  cupidity.  Not  content  with  flattering 
him,  recently  an  obscure  stranger,  and  the  son  of  a 
goldsm.ith  of  Edinburgh,  they  flattered  his  mistress, 
his  daughter,  still  a  child,  even  Thierry  his  valet. 
The  court  of  Law  was  increased  by  many  women  of 
quality,  momentarily  escaped  from  the  court  of  the 
Regent,  and  the  governor  of  the  bank  became  the 
object  of  their  pursuits,  the  ardor  of  gain  silencing 
their  shame.  ^Nothing  w^as  omitted,  w^hich  was  of  a 
nature  to  dissipate  old  prestiges.  It  was  in  the  com- 
pany of  the  Targez,  and  the  Poterats,  that  Louis 
Henry  de  Bourbon,  the  Marshal  d'  Estrees,  the 
Prince  de  Yalmont,  the  Baron  Breteuil,  managed  the 
business.  In  the  list  of  the  directors  of  the  India 
Company,  might  be  read  by  the  side  of  the  name 
of  the  Pegent  of  France,  that  of  Saint  Edme,  known 
at  the  fair  of  Saint  Laurent  as  the  chief  of  the 
mountebanks.  *****  ^  great  lord,  the 
Marquis  d'Oyse,  the  son  and  younger  brother  of  the 
Duke  de  Yillars-Brancas,  was  shameless  enough  to 
take  the  daughter  of  the  stock-gambler  Andre,  only 

5* 


106  CAUSE    OP    INFIDELITY. 

three  years  old,  as  liis  wife,  ou  condition  that  her 
dowry  should  be  paid  in  advance." 

Surely  in  a  world  with  such  a  central  scene  we 
need  not  wonder  that  infidelity  coupled  with  Mam- 
monism  seemed  to  have  poisoned  the  moral  life  of 
universal  society. 

We  point  therefore  to  the  ascendency  of  the  idea 
of  wealth,  in  the  cabinets  of  princes  and  in  general 
society,  as  one  of  the  causes  of  skepticism  ;  yet  not  a 
cause,  be  it  noted,  in  itself  alone  necessitating  such  a 
result  j  but  powerfully  and  fatally  cooperating  with 
other  causes  in  the  production  of  it.  In  view  how- 
ever of  its  efiiciencies  towards  a  result  so  universal 
and  so  disastrous,  we  are  compelled  to  inquire  what 
gave  this  cause  in  this  era  such  a  peculiar  malig- 
nancy ?  What  made  the  pursuit  of  wealth  in  that 
age  so  godless  and  so  corrupting  ? 

The  passion  of  wealth  is  one  of  the  dominant 
passions  of  our  own  time.  It  leaps  through  the 
veins  of  our  universal  civilization  like  a  burning 
fever  ;  still  I  think  I  may  say  the  age  is  not  infidel. 
What  then  gave  its  peculiar  virus  of  infidelity  and 
godlessness  at  that  time?  Tliere  must  have  been 
elements  especially  malignant  conspiring  and  blend- 
ing with  it. 

There  were  causes  inherent  in  the  history  of  the 
times  and  in  the  stage  of  civilization  which  Europe 


MAMMONISM.  107 

Lad  attained,  giving  increased  prominence  and  power 
to  wealth,  and  stirring  to  the  pnrsnit  of  it,  with  the 
intensity  of  a  new  and  strange  passion.  The  very 
increase  of  wealth  in  itself  and  the  general  causes 
elevating  the  industrial  masses  and  creative  of  a 
third  estate,  necessitated  such  a  consequence.  But 
nevertheless  a  step  essential  in  the  progress  of  civili- 
zation, and  requisite  to  the  development  of  its  power 
and  to  the  accomplishment  of  vast  and  beniiicent 
physical,  and  to  social  and  even  moral  achievement ; 
such  a  step  in  the  life  of  society,  as  was  that  out  of 
which  the  idea  of  wealth  rose  to  power,  we  are  con- 
fident, God  would  have  enabled  society  to  take, 
without  consequences  so  dreadful,  but  for  great 
crimes  of  society  itself  and  a  most  guilty  feebleness 
or  neglect  or  apostasy  of  the  great  moral  vitalizer  of 
society- — the  Church,  or  the  body  representing  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  malignant,  epidemic  Mammonism  of  the  age 
demands  our  attention  both  as  effect  and  catise.  As 
an  effect,  it  undoubtedly  points  us  in  part  to  the  very 
causes  that  we  have  before  noticed  in  this  discussion 
as  directly  producing  infidelity.  It  was  because  the 
Clinrch,  over  most  of  Europe  despotic,  and  in  many 
countries,  and  especially  in  that  where  this  madness 
raged  most  fiercely,  warring  on  human  reason  and 
enlightenment,  had  lost  its  grasp  and  control  of  the 


108  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

age — had  no  power  to  purify,  moderate  or  direct 
aright  its  passions.  The  Church — the  power  repre- 
sentative of  Christianity — by  its  denial  of  man's 
instinctive  right  of  private  judgment,  and  by  its 
cruelties  towards  the  assertor  of  those  rights,  and  by 
associating  itself  with  political  tyranny  through 
almost  the  entire  continent,  had  brought  on  itself  the 
hatred  and  scorn  of  mankind ;  and  had  consequently 
no  power  to  perform  for  society,  when  tried  by  the 
passion  of  wealth,  the  proper  function  of  a  moral 
guardian  and  curator.  It  could  not  discharge  the 
office  of  a  religion,  viz.,  to  bind,  curb,  moderate  and 
temper  the  desires  and  impulses  of  society  when 
impelled  to  disastrous  and  guilty  excess.  Its  oppres- 
sion moreover  had  kept  nations  in  perpetual  moral 
pupilage,  had  dwarfed  and  crippled  their  moral 
energies,  and  impaired  their  power  of  independent 
self-government  and  self-restraint.  Society  conse- 
quentfy  encountered  the  'temptation  without  the 
habit  or*power  of  resistance,  and  it  is  not  strange  it 
was  overborne.  It  must  be  so  with  any  faith  formed 
without  the  free  exercise  of  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment. It  is  not  genuine  faith.  It  is  a  mere  sham. 
It  has  no  foundation  in  our  self-consciousness,  none 
in  perceived  evidence.  It  has  no  logic  to  defend  it- 
self against  its  own  doubts  or  the  assaults  of  others. 
The  consciousness  of  never  having  proved  itself  by 


MAMMONISM.  109 

personal  examination,  or  the  examination  of  others 
in  whose  opinion  it  reposes  its  trust,  must  carry  a 
fatal  timidity  and  feebleness  into  all  its  results.  In 
the  time  of  temptation  such  faith  will  fall  away  ;  and 
that,  whether  it  be  the  faith  of  individuals  or  of 
nations.  When  it  ceases  to  be  a  superstition  or  a 
fanaticism,  it  is  nothing.  It  ever  is  and  must  be  a 
most  miserable  defence  against  either  irreligion  or 
unbelief ;  or  any  of  those  passions  that  from  time  to 
time  sweep  society  like  moral  storms.  Add  to  this 
feebleness  necessarily  incidental  to  any  faith  under 
coercion  and  restriction  of  examination,  the  sense  of 
wrongs  inflicted  tyrannously  and  cruelly  on  the 
private  reason  and  the  conscience;  the  indignation 
and  scorn  arising  in  the  mind  from  the  attempt 
fraudulently  to  palm  off,  or  authoritatively  to  enforce, 
the  most  puerile  falsehoods  and  absurdities,  and  the 
most  drivelling  superstitions.  Add  the  disgust  that 
must  arise  in  it,  at  seeing  a  religion  without  morality, 
a  Christianity  without  charity,  a  Church  at  once 
superstitious  and  sensual,  fanatic  and  hypocritical, 
licentious  and  tyrannical ;  add  all  these  and  we  shall 
see  forces  enough  at  work  utterly  to  strip  religion  of 
its  power  over  the  epidemic  lusts  of  nations  or  eras, 
be  they  for  gold  or  empire,  and  to  cause  social  distem- 
peratures  to  be  left  to  run  their  course  in  entire  riot ; 
enough  to  push  the  human  mind  from  the  regions  of 


110  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

its  twilight  faith  into  the  thick  darkness  of  irreligion 
and  infidelity ;  and  to  impel  it  on  to  that  madness  of 
worldly  passion  and  pursuit  that  arises  from  dimness 
or  despair  of  the  future,  and  crushes  our  eternal 
aspirations  into  this  hour  of  life. 

In  j)roof  of  the  correctness  of  this  reaso7iing,  we 
appeal  to  the  comparative  experience  of  the  different 
countries  of  Euroj^e  which  passed  through  the  trial  of 
the  money-epidemic  together.  Where  did  the  money 
madness  strike  deepest,  and  leave  the  most  dej)lora- 
ble  consequences  ?  In  Protestant  or  Catholic 
Europe  ?  In  Catholic.  The  storm  of  trial  beat  hard 
upon  England — harder  than  perhaps  on  any  other 
nation  in  Europe,  in  proportion  as  her  industrial 
energies  were  most  active  and  most  stimulated  by 
civil  liberty,  and  VL-pon  her,  gushed  most  profusely 
the  golden  stream  of  wealth.  But  though  the 
national  mind  may  have  reeled  a  moment,  it  was  not 
intoxicated  nor  overborne.  The  snaring  influences 
of  a  w^orld's  commerce,  and  almost  a  world's  wealth, 
of  a  national  policy  eminently  mercantile,  of  interests 
and  institutions,  and  foreign  and  domestic  adminis- 
tration swayed  ,by  finance — all  these  were  around 
the  English  mind.  But  there  was  in  that  mind, 
imperfect  as  was  English  Protestantism,  enough  of 
the  energy  of  Christian  truth  and  liberty  to  withstand 
these  influences.    That  mind,  as  far  as  the  great  mass 


MAMMONISH.  Ill 

of  the  nation  were  concerned,  held  fast  its  sobriety 
and  its  loyalty  to  Christianitj^,  and  almost  stood  alone 
erect  in  Christendom.  In  France,  on  the  other  hand 
— the  head  of  Catholic  Europe— the  excesses  of 
atheism  and  of  the  money  phrenzy  were  both  wild- 
est and  nearly  sjmchronous.  Why  was  this?  Abso- 
lute power  in  Church  and  State  had  made  minds  in 
her,  inert  and  paralytic,  or  insurgent  and  disloyal 
toward  Christianity,  and  exposed  her  defenceless  to 
the  corruptions  of  Mammon. 

In  the  other  country  some  degree — though  imper- 
fect— of  spiritual  liberty,  had  educated  and  disci- 
plined the  mind  of  the  nation  to  self-sustained  and 
energetic  faith  ;  to  love  Christ  and  Christianity  inde- 
pendent of  the  Church,  and  armed  it  with  deep  and 
steadfast  vital  principles.  Spain  and  other  Catholic 
powers,  that  were  less  affected  by  the  prevalent 
passion  and  enterprise  for  wealth,  and  which  were 
not  swayed  so  disastrously  by  it  to  infidelity,  owed 
their  partial  exemption  simply  to  the  fact  that  des- 
potism, civil  and  spiritual,  had  there  done  its  deadly 
work  with  a  more  hideous  completeness — had 
through  the  terrible  energy  and  thoroughness  of  the 
Inquisition,  so  utterly  quenched  spiritual  liberty  and 
enlightenment,  that  the  nation  sank  below  the  circle 
of  the  ideas  of  the  age,  and  was  in  a  great  measure 


112  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

cut  off  from  modern  civilization.  Tliej  escaped  the 
perils  of  the  transition  period  because  they  were 
stationary.  They  had  no  emancipation  of  mind,  no 
revolution  of  philosophy,  no  rise  of  a  third  estate; 
they  were  exempt  from  the  perils  of  progress  and 
corruptions  of  enterprise.  They  escaped  convulsion 
in  permanent  paralysis ;  the  dangers  of  youth,  in  the 
imbecility  of  perpetual  childhood.  They  fell  below 
the  range  of  the  temptations  and  dangers  of  the 
period.  To  the  degree  that  they  were  less  afflicted 
by  defiant  and  frantic  atheism,  they  owed  their 
exemption  to  a  slavish  superstition  and  abject  igno- 
rance. They  had  not  life  enough  for  fever,  or  spasm, 
or  delirium.  The  same  oppression  that  had  sup- 
pressed Protestantism  in  them,  had  nearly  crushed 
the  vitality  out  of  their  civilization,  and  they  had 
less  of  throes  and  agony  only  because  they  were 
nearer  death. 

The  difference  of  the  effects  of  despotic  repression 
on  minds,  as  between  France  and  Spain,  was  the 
difference  between  killing  a  man  and  putting  his 
eyes  out.  In  one,  the  national  mind  seemed  utterly 
crushed  and  smothered  ;  in  the  other,  it  was  blinded 
as  it  regards  religion,  but  the  passions  of  life  and 
fever  of  intoxication  were  rioting  as  fiercely  in  the 
veins  -as  ever.      In  France  despotic  repression  had 


MAMMONISH.  113 

driven  thought  into  wide  and  wild  paths  every  way ; 
but  had  shut  up  avenues  to  the  true  faith.  In  Sj)ain 
it  seemed  to  have  quenched  thought  itself. 

To  the  common  charge,  therefore,  that  Mammonism 
or  the  undue  ascendency  of  the  idea  of  wealth  in 
communities — is  a  vice  of  Protestantism,  we  answer: 
it  is  obnoxious  to  this  imputation  only  as  it  produces 
that  industrial  activity,  skill  and  energy,  and  tliat 
prosperity  and  enlightenment  of  the  masses,  and  that 
financial  accumulation,  enterprise  and  policy,  from 
which  the  ascendency  of  this  passion  may  spring. 
It  makes  nations  money-loving,  simply  as  it  makes 
them  money-getting  and  money-having.  There  is 
a  faith  that  usually  enforces  its  voice  of  j)overty  on 
nations  if  not  on  its  acolytes  and  devotees — which 
delivers  from  Mammonism,  by  removing  its  prizes, 
by  destroying  the  industrial  energies,  intelligence, 
art,  enterprise ;  which  wait  on  freedom  of  thought, 
and  which  alone  enable  nations  successfully  to  enter 
into  the  competitions  of  production  and  traffic. 

But  alas,  we  find  that  nations  can  be  poor  without 
being  pure ;  that  idleness,  ignorance,  thriftlessness 
and  mendicity  are  no  guaranty  of  Christian  faith 
and  virtue.  "We  find,  again,  where  the  despotism 
over  thought  has  not  succeeded  in  extinguishiDg 
fiscal  enterprise  and  prosperity,  it  leaves  the  passion 
generated  of  and  proper  to  that  enterprise  and  pros- 


114  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

perity,  tlie  most  wild,  exorbitant  and  without  moral 
curb.  It  was,  we  may  notice,  in  a  country  not 
Protestant  that  the  money-mania  was  maddest  and 
deadliest  to  the  faith  of  nations. 

This  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  past  admonishes 
not  of  the  safety  or  desirableness  of  poverty,  but  of 
the  necessity  of  counteracting  the  dangers  which  an 
era  of  Mammonisra,  like  the  one  in  which  we  live, 
must  ever  bring  to  faith  and  life,  by  the  protective 
and  restorative  power  of  a  free,  vigorous  and  enlight- 
ened Christianity. 

The  theme  is  one  of  profound  and  solemn  rele- 
vancy to  our  times.  The  melancholy  cataclasm  of 
the  last  century  warns  us  of  present  peril.  The  lust 
of  gold  leaps  through  all  the  veins  of  the  modern 
world.  It  burns  through  all  our  civilization.  All 
passions  and  pursuits  converge  in  this.  All  the 
prizes  of  society  are  in  the  gift  of  Mammon.  The 
multitudinous,  multifarious,  infinite  business  of  the 
world — its  productions,  manufactures,  exchange — all 
are  a  constant  discipline  to  the  love  of  money.  If 
another  era  of  unbelief  awaits  us,  we  shall  enter  it 
through  the  portals  of  Mammon.  The  path  to  that 
abyss  will  be  draped  with  purple  and  shine  with 
gold.  Railways,  steamships,  mysteries  of  mechan- 
ism, the  wonders  of  art,  Californias,  Australias,  will 
marshal  us  that  way.     The  spirit  of  the  age  already 


MAMMONISH.  115 

feels  the  spell  of  the  mighty  fascination.  From  this 
one  thing  only  shall  save  us.  ISTo  glittering  cathe- 
dral, or  purple  hierarchies,  or  pomp  of  superstition,  or 
awe  of  antiquity  or  authorities ;  no  slavish,  no  dog- 
matic, no  ignorant,  no  dead  faith,  nothing  but  the 
energy,  the  power,  the  intelligence,  the  spirit,  the 
life  of  an  earnest,  enlightened  faith,  communing 
freely  with  the  Scriptures  and  the  Spirit  of  Truth. 

Never  in  any  age  has  there  been  such  vital  need 
of  an  earnest,  active,  intelligent  and  free  Church,  as 
now  and  in  our  own  country.  The  richer  our  pros- 
perity, the  more  intense  our  necessity.  Without  it 
the  golden  stream  on  which  we  sail,  bears  us  surely 
to  the  doom  of  ancient  Tyre  and  the  nations  of  old — 
w^iom  riches  slew.  We  hurry  through  Mammon- 
ism  to  godlessness  and  dissolution.  From  the  era 
when  Jugurtha  departing  from  Home,  shock  venge- 
fully  his  hand  just  threatened  with  Komtn  chains,  at 
that  capital  of  the  earth,  wdtli  the  ominous  menace, 
"  Ah  doomed  city !  sold,  if  only  you  can  find  a 
purchaser  ;" — from  that  era,  her  faith  and  her  man- 
hood sickened  together  under  the  blight  of  the  lust 
of  gold.  No  longer  glory  or  country  or  religion  ; 
no  temple  or  shrine  or  home ;  but  gain,  plunder, 
luxury — these  were  the  battle-cry,  that  led  on  her 
legions.  The  overspreading  Mammonism  and  Epi- 
curism, together  with  the  Atheism,  that  followed, 


116  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

are  abundantly  noted  in  the  orators  and  satirists  and 
historians  of  the  close  of  the  Republic  and  the  begin- 
ning of  tlie  Empire.  So  along  that  future  of  infinite 
wealth,  and  infinite  stimulants  to  the  passions  for 
wealth,  opening  to  our  age,  this  generation  will  walk 
with  more  peril  than  through  a  field  bristling  with 
the  arms  of  a  world.  A  faith  that  walks  with  a 
living  Christ  and  an  open  Bible,  that  is  active,  man- 
ly, enterprising,  beneficent  and  free,  and  which  com- 
Dtands  the  intellect  and  conscience  of  the  age,  alone 
can  save  us.  Without  this  the  golden  clouds  that 
float  over  and  about  us,  will  settle  down  all  around 
our  sky,  and  we  shall  see  beyond  no  God,  no  Heaven, 
no  immortality,  nor  the  frightful  grave  that  waits  us, 
hid  in  that  "  field  of  the  cloth  of  gold." 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  117 


CHAPTER  Y. 
SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

Spiritual  Despotism,  the  Cause  of  Causes — Era  of  Absolutism — Dou- 
ble Despotism  over  Europe  —  Treaty  of  Westphalia  —  Military 
Monarchies — Hopelessness  and  helplessness  of  the  Millions — Intel- 
lectual repression — Mind  driven  from  the  Practical  to  the  Specula- 
tive— License  of  Speculative  Thought — The  World  Undermined — 
War  OQ  Private  Judgment — A  War  on  the  Faith  of  Nations — The 
Spiritual  Power  Darkened  and  Emasculated — Intellectual  imbecil- 
lity  of  the  Church — Ecclesiastical  Literature  in  Protestant  and 
Catholic  Europe. 

The  theme  we  now  propose  to  consider  is  spi- 
KiTUAL  DESPOTISM,  related  as  a  cause  to  the  Great 
Ajpostasy  of  Christendom  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
"We  wish  to  direct  especial  attention  to  it^  not  simply 
because  of  the  imjDortance  of  it  as  2ifact^  in  its  his- 
toric relations  to  the  particular  phenomenon  we 
investigate,  but  because  of  its  essential  and  immortal 
malignancy  as  2i  j^rinci])le^  in  all  times  and  all  forms, 
and  because,  like  a  chronic  cleaving  curse,  it  fastens 
on  society  through  all  changes.  Hideously  promi- 
nent, it  stands  out  on  the  page  of  both  logic  and 
history,  as  the  enemy  of  faith,  and  in  countless 
subtle,  shifting  disguises,  it  walks  the  whole  earth, 


118  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

this  hour.  It  lingers  in  every  clime ;  in  every  civil- 
ization ;  in  every  communion ;  perhaps  I  might  say 
without  paradox,  in  every  human  bosom.  It  is  a 
spirit  of  that  sort  that  cometh  not  out  without  prayer 
and  fasting,  and  seldom  too  without  tearing  the 
victim  it  leaves. 

The  great  disaster  to  faith,  of  modern  society  in 
the  transition  era  of  its  philosophy  and  civilization 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  is  often 
charged  on  the  principle  oi  Liberty  oy  Protestantism. 
But  history  as  well  as  philosophy,  seem  to  us  unmis- 
takably to  point  to  directly  the  opposite  principle — 
Despotism,  as  the  great  cause  of  the  defection  of  the 
human  mind  from  religious  faith  during  the  above 
period.  She  points  especially  to  the  double  despot- 
ism of  Church  and  State,  that  peculiarly  marks  this 
period.  In  baleful  conjunction,  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical tyrannies  hung  in  double  orb  over  the  sky  of 
Europe  for  a  century ;  like  the  plague-struck  sun  in 
the  apocalypse,  tormenting  the  nations. 

By  despotism,  I  mean  lordship,  mastery,  dominion, 
of  man  over  man,  or  mind  over  mind;  the  forceful 
rule  of  the  opinion,  reason,  or  will,  of  the  one,  as 
matter  of  authority  and  command,  over  those  of  the 
many.  Such  lordship  applied  to  religion,  we  call 
spiritual  despotism ;  to  politics,  political  despotism ; 
to   philosophy  and   science,  intellectual   despotism. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  119 

Spiritual  despotism  wielded  bj  the  Church,  is  named 
ecclesiastical.  Ecclesiastical  despotism  united  with 
the  State,  as  ally,  instrument  or  master,  is  termed 
politico-ecclesiastical  despotism.  By  spiritual  des- 
potism in  this  chapter,  I  mean  either  despotism 
wielded  by  the  spiritual  power,  or  that  over  spiritual 
interests. 

In  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  the 
human  mind  was  peculiarly  feeling  the  curse  of  a 
double  or  rather  triple  despotism ;  which  had  been 
plaguing  the  earth  for  ages,  but  then  with  especial 
and  combined  pressure,  crushed  down  humanity. 
Intellectual,  spiritual,  political — all  united,  and  with 
peculiar  virulence,  in  its  triple  hideousness,  pre- 
sented a  terrible  completeness  of  tyranny,  almost 
w^ithout  parallel  in  the  worst  ages.  It  seemed  like 
an  attempt  to  smother  the  life  of  the  world.  At- 
tempt, I  say ;  for  happily  the  triumph,  the  absolu- 
tism of  this  tyranny,  was  never  an  achieved  fact. 
Its  attempt  had  in  God's  mercy  been  deferred  in 
human  history,  till  it  could  be  only  an  attempt.  The 
movement  was  too  late  for  perfect  success.  Never- 
theless it  wrought  in  the  earth  a  mighty  curse.  It 
was  the  repression  and  perturbation  caused  by  the 
attempt  of  this  triple  despotism  to  master  society, 
that  drove  the  mind  of  Europe  wide  and  wild  from 
its  healthful  and  natural  course.     It  was  not  the 


120  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

cmancijpation  of  the  reason,  but  the  attempt  io  fetter 
it  when  partially  emancipated,  that  wrought  the 
mischief.  It  was  not  the  stream  itself,  but  the  dykes 
and  dams  thrown  across  its  otherwise  beneficent  and 
fertilizing  current,  that  caused  the  inundation  that 
swept  the  world. 

The  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were 
peculiarly  the  era  of  absolute  monarchy  in  Europe. 
The  period  of  which  we  treat  (1648 — 1790),  opens  with 
the  scene  of  thrones  surrounded  with  standing  armies. 
The  military  has  succeeded  to  the  feudal  monarchy. 
The  terrible  convulsion  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  religious  war  has  torn  feudalism  to  pieces, 
or  has  broken,  impoverished  and  prostrated  it,  all 
through  Western  Europe.  The  new  finance  of 
nations,  now  feeds  armies  formerly  sustained  by 
feudal  loyalty  and  treasure ;  indeed,  far  vaster 
standing  forces  than  feudal  history  ever  knew.  Thus 
the  new-born  political  economy  and  the  science  of 
wealth  marking  the  progress  of  society  in  various 
interests,  become  the  arts  of  tyranny.  The  invention 
of  gunpowder,  and  the  new  arts  and  appliances  of 
war,  have  converted  it  into  a  science  of  mere 
mechanized  masses  ;  a  mathematical  problem,  rather 
than  a  game  of  chivalry. 

Christendom  has  just  emerged  from  the  great 
drawn  battle  of  the  Keformation  ;  but  has  emerged 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  121 

m  armor.  It  now  presents  an  array  of  states  in  a 
permanent  armed  truce.  Large  military  establish- 
ments, created  by  ages  of  religions  warfare  and  sus- 
tained by  the  new  finance,  are  now  deemed  necessary 
by  states  to  watch  and  guard  against  each  other ^  in 
time  of  peace.  The  throne  appears  no  longer  girt 
with  baronial  swords,  bnt  surrounded  by  myriads  of 
bayonets ;  not  only  as  a  defence  against  aggression 
from  abroad,  but  as  a  ready  and  terrible  instrument 
of  enforcing  a  mechanic  obedience  at  home ;  and  of 
repressing  and  crushing  the  liberties  of  the  subject 
millions. 

And,  to  make  the  despotism  more  oi)pressive, 
those  liberties  have  now  no  constitutional  or  institu- 
tional defences.  The  restrictions  of  feudalism,  the 
rights  of  estates,  the  privileges  of  classes  and  orders, 
baronial  j)rerogatives  and  provincial  liberties,  had  to 
a  great  extent  perished  in  the  convulsions  of  the 
previous  period.  There  was  now  no  breakwater 
against  the  central  despotism  or  monarchy.  Nations 
are  seen  prostrated  with  no  intervention  of  shield  or 
defence  before  the  throne. 

Under  the  tyranny  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  and  still 
more  under  the  Tiberian  despotism  of  Philip  Second 
the  feudal  and  provincial  liberties  of  Spain,  order  by 
order,  province  by  province,  and  kingdom  by  king- 
dom, had  been  beaten  down.     The  dark  bigotry  of 

6 


12?  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Ferdinand  Second,  had,  after  generations  of  cruel 
and  religious  wars,  effected  the  same  in  the  vast 
estates  of  Austria — Hungary,  Bohemia  and  Austria 
proper ;  and  at  the  close  of  thirty  years  war,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  long  rule  of  violence  and  mere  arms, 
Germany,  throughout  its  multitude  of  states,  presents 
a  group  of  petty  or  powerful  military  despotisms ; 
while  Prussia,  under  the  ambition  of  the  House  of 
Brandenburgh,  exhibits  itself,  in  this  as  in  other 
respects,  one  of  the  most  jDcrfect  types  of  the  tenden- 
cies of  the  age.  In  France,  the  aristocracy  has  for 
the  most  part  perished  in  the  civil  wars;  and 
baronial  parliamentary  liberties  lie  crushed  beneath 
the  throne  of  the  Bourbons.  In  Sweden,  Denmark, 
and  the  ISTorthern  powers,  the  same  tendency  toward 
absolute  monarchy  is  manifested.  In  England,  it  is 
the  rule  of  the  Tudors  and  the  Stuarts.  In  short,  as  I 
said  before,  it  is  the  era  of  absolutism ;  the  baron  has 
sunk  in  the  courtier:  the  privileges  of  estates  are 
prostrate ;  and  royalty  stands  alone  amid  its  cordon 
of  mechanic  and  mercenary  legions ;  alone,  save 
that  in  the  evil  alliance  with  it,  appears  the  spiritual 
power.  To  this,  I  especially  wish  to  call  attention, 
this  junction  of  despotism,  all  through  Europe,  dur- 
ing the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  as  a 
portentous  feature  of  the  times.  State  is  everywhere 
the  guardian  of  faith.    Lord,  ally,  or  servant  of  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  123 

Clmrcli.  This  is  true  both  of  Protestant  and  Catholic 
Europe.  The  Church,  whether  national  or  papal,  is 
in  either  case  despotic,  and  the  abettor  and  confede- 
rate of  absolute  power  in  the  State.  It  is  the  instru- 
ment and  accomplice  of  the  throne,  in  a  conspiracy 
against  the  liberties  of  mankind ;  leaving  no  longer 
hope  in  the  separation  and  division  of  tyrannies. 

I  have  said  this  was  true  in  Protestant  States,  as 
well  as  Catholic.  In  this,  it  is  true,  the  Protestant 
Church  (so  called)  is  in  conflict  with  its  vital  princi- 
ples ;  but  it  becomes  none  the  less,  to  the  extent  of 
its  despotic  practice,  equally  responsible  for  the  dis- 
astrous consequences  to  faith,  arising  from  the  force- 
ful repression  or  perturbation  of  the  European  mind, 
and  from  placing  Christianity  in  seeming  antagonism 
to  liberty  and  progress. 

It  is  spiritual  despotism  in  alliance  with  civil,  that 
I  wish  to  point  at,  as  one  great  cause  of  the  defection 
of  Christendom  from  Christianity  in  the  eighteenth 
century ;  and  that,  whether  in  Protestant  or  Catholic 
States.  And  if  the  mischiefs  were  less  universal  or 
permanent  in  the  former,  than  in  the  latter,  it  was 
because  despotic  Protestantism  was  a  solecism  and 
inconsistency  in  itself;  convulsed,  rent  and  made 
powerless  often  by  its  own  antagonisms.  Its  life- 
principles  ever  warred  on  its  despotic  practice,  broke 


124  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

the  edge  of  its  despotism  while  it  survived,  and  were 
destined  finally  to  destroy  it. 

The  Treaty  of  Westphalia  made  no  provision  for  the 
spiritual  liberty  of  individuals.  In  that  great  settle- 
ment of  Europe  in  1648,  there  is  no  recognition  of 
the  right  of  private  judgment.  Protestantism  be- 
comes a  religio  Ucita,  a  legitimated  religion,  in  the 
European  family  of  States;  that  is  all.  The  reli- 
gious independency  of  nations,  as  between  them- 
selves, is  guaranteed.  But  this  independency  was 
in  effect  only  the  equal  religious  absolutism  of  poten- 
tates; an  equal  license  to  crush  down  dissent  in 
their  own  realms,  undisturbed  by  their  neighbors. 
1^0  guard  is  taken  for  the  spiritual  liberties  of  the 
subject.  The  millions  were  handed  over  to  their 
rulers,  with  slight  exceptions,  as  mer^  dumb  driven 
cattle;  to  be  coerced  by  pains  and  penalties,  at 
pleasure,  into  conformity  with  the  creed  and  order 
of  their  despots. 

Thus  everywhere  the  despotic  State,  by  natural  affi- 
nities, draws  to  itself  the  despotic  Church.  Secular 
and  spiritual  tyrannies  coalesce  and  cons23ire ;  and 
they  wield  in  execution  of  their  mandate,  vast 
machine-like  masses  of  military  force;  such  as 
Europe  has  never  seen  before,  since  the  Eoman 
Empire. 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM.  125 

To  this  baleful  alliance  and  double  pressure  of 
despotisms  in  tlie  seventeenth  century,  made  more 
stifling  still  with  the  weight  of  a  ponderous  military 
arm,  is  to  a  great  extent  attributable  the  religious 
eclipse  during  the  century  that  follows. 

This  result  accrued  in  various  ways.  In  the  first 
place,  this  double  despotism  turns  the  mind  of  the 
world  out  of  its  regular  and  healthful  course.  To 
the  obstruction  and  repression  of  the  human  mind  in 
its  ordinar}^  and  practical  direction,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  must  be  ascribed  much  of  its  wild, 
erratic,  revolutionary,  often  destructive,  career  in  the 
ages  following.  The  despotisms,  political  and  eccle- 
siastical, that  towered  above  nations,  forbade  all 
action,  all  speech,  all  question,  and  as  far  as  possible, 
all  thought,  implicating  themselves.  And  as  this 
covered  both  worlds,  what  was  left  ?  They  ordained 
themselves  sacred,  inviolate,  forbidden  themes.  The 
human  mind  might  not  look  that  way  with  question. 
Around  the  throne  and  the  altar,  it  was  to  prostrate 
itself,  blind,  and  in  silence.  Of  its  great,  immediate, 
palpable,  wrongs  and  rights,  of  the  tyrannic  organ- 
isms of  society  meeting  it  everywhere,  of  ecclesias- 
tical or  political  institutions,  of  laws,  parliaments, 
estates,  church  liberties  and  reforms,  church  creeds 
and  rituals — of  themes  like  these,  it  might  not 
breathe  a  free  whisper;    at  least,  all  speech  and 


126  CAUSE    OF   INFIDELITY. 

literature  must  keep  so  far  aloof  from  the  actual 
world,  as  to  avoid  tlie  jealous  suspicions  and  espion- 
age of  tlie  spiritual  and  secular  tyrants  of  that  world. 
All  thinking  must  pass  the  censorship  of  pope,  pre- 
late, monarch  and  premier.  Theology  and  politics 
became  in  consequence,  to  a  great  extent,  shut 
against  the  human  mind.  The  ideal  and  speculative 
was  the  only  field  left  open  to  it.  Into  that  it 
plunged :  the  infinite  abstract  became  its  realm  and 
its  laboratory. 

Hence  the  wide  severance  soon  exhibited  between 
the  speculative  and  practical.  Men  took  their 
revenge  for  the  tyrannous  restrictions  thus  enforced 
on  thought  and  speech  within,  by  giving  themselves 
unbounded  license  beyond  those  restrictions.  There 
was  none  of  the  moderation  and  sobriety  ever  im- 
pressed on  thought,  by  bringing  its  conclusions  to 
the  test  of  experiment,  and  into  relation  to  the  actual 
world.  Men  plunged  into  wild  and  daring,  fantastic 
and  impious  vagaries  of  philosophy,  utterly  careless 
because  they  were  all  mere  speculative  vagaries, 
nothing  more :  it  was  all  heat  lightning  ;  or  at  least, 
thunder  in  mid-sky.  E'obody  could  be  hit ;  it  never 
touched  the  common  earth  or  existent  actual  inte- 
rests, and  never  was  to  do  so.  Thus  mind  entered 
with  reckless  freedom  into  the  realms  of  abstract 
thought ;  none  of  the  common  healthful  restrictions 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  127 

of  actuality  or  practicality  limiting  it.  Literature 
became  in  consequence  conjectural,  ideal,  empirical, 
all-questioning,  all-daring.  Free  thought  left  the 
common  earth  to  plunge  into  the  dark  deeps  below, 
or  to  soar  into  the  mist  and  vapor  above ;  till  society 
was  all  undermined  beneath,  and  its  sky  was  veiled 
all  over  with  subtle  and  fantastic  cloud- work,  ready 
to  turn  to  masses  of  storm  on  coming  generations. 
This  was  the  first  great  mischief  of  those  despotisms 
— \h\^  forcing  the  human  mind  a/way  from  its  course  / 
driving  it  from  affairs  themselves  which  might  have 
moderated  and  regulated  it,  to  the  abstract  principle 
which  lay  at  the  basis  of  affairs,  and  with  which, 
because  they  were  abstract,  it  was  tempted  to  deal 
with  the  wildest  and  most  capricious  license. 

It  is  astonishing  to  observe,  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  portentous  chasm  which  was 
thus  made  to  yawn  between  the  speculative  and  the 
actual  world^ — a  chasm  it  was  to  take  the  ruins  of 
European  civilization,  the  wreck  of  its  oldest  monar- 
chies, and  tlie  corpses  of  ten  millions  of  men  to  fill 
up.  Yet  men  were  never  more  unconscious  of  the 
precipice  to  which  society  was  brought.  They 
seemed  to  have  had  no  idea  that  the  speculative 
might  ever  attempt  to  become  the  practical ;  the 
ideal,  the  real.  Courtiers  and  monarchs,  in  Yersailles 
and  Potsdam   and  Vienna,  mouthed  of  Cato  and 


128  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Harmodius  and  names  of  classic  freedom  and  regi- 
cide heroism ;  even  Frederick  the  Great,  so  called, 
the  most  absolute  and  not  least  sagacious  of  the 
tyrants  or  his  time,  conld  talk  loftily  of  Brutus  and 
the  king-killers,  and  vapor  in  heroic  platitudes  of 
democratic  liberties  and  magnanimities  ;  little  think- 
ing the  earth  could  still  breed  democrats  and  assas- 
sins of  kings.  The  infidel  epigram  flashed  and  hissed 
amid  the  brilliant  circles  of  Paris  and  Berlin  and 
Petersburgh,  with  utter  thoughtlessness  that  those 
glittering  sparkles  were  setting  the  world  on  fire — 
were  igniting  a  magazine  below  altar  and  throne  and 
universal  society.  Speculations  on  the  social  con- 
tract were  as  carelessly  embraced,  and  caricatures  of 
royal  or  hierarchical  vice  and  folly,  were  as  heartily 
and  as  recklessly  laughed  at,  as  if  they  were  theories 
and  picturings  of  the  man  in  the  moon.  I  need  not 
argue  that  such  a  state  of  the  public  mind  was  favor- 
able to  skepticism — it  was  skepticism;  striking 
through  all  the  foundations  of  the  actual  world ;  yet 
in  the  deeps,  but  soon  to  emerge  to  the  surface  of 
affairs. 

ISTow  when  we  reflect  on  the  mighty  startle  and 
impulse  given  to  the  human  mind  by  the  achieve- 
ments in  science,  art  and  discovery,  and  by  the  con- 
flict of  religious  ideas,  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries;  and  that  the  world  was  just 


SPIRITUAL     DESPOTISM.  129 

emerging  from  the  era  of  Liither  and  Calvin  and 
Zuingle,  of  Copernicns  and  Columbus,  and  the  inven- 
tor of  Strasburgh  who  wrought  mightier  than  they 
all ;  when  we  reflect  that  it  was  in  such  an  age  that 
such  an  arrest  was  attempted  of  the  human  mind, 
we  shall  not  wonder  at  the  terrible  energy  with 
which  that  mind  was  impelled  into  new  and  wild 
ways  ;  nor  that  driven  from  ecclesiastical  and  politi- 
cal reform,  it  should  with  terrible  force  address  itself 
to  a  revolution  in  the  realm  of  philosophy — ^to  the 
questioning  of  first  principles  and  to  the  destruction 
and  reconstruction  of  the  foundations  of  all  belief. 
In  short,  across  the  current  of  the  world's  mind,  thus 
dashing  down  the  rapids  of  the  previous  age,  civil 
and  spiritual  despotism  threw  their  massive  and 
gloomy  structures.  No  wonder  they  caused  an 
overflow  that  flooded  the  whole  earth ;  and  that  the 
violence  of  the  waters  made  them  insinuate  through 
the  deeps  below,  and  fret  against  the  foundation  of 
those  structures,  till  they  were  all  undermined,  and 
tottering  over  a  hideous  abyss. 

This  crushing  repression  was  attempted  on  the 
minds  of  Europe  in  all  the  eagerness  and  enthusiasm 
of  new  light  and  liberty,  and  under  the  intensest  sti- 
mulant of  novel  and  startling  ideas  and  discoveries. 
Christendom  had  never  known  such  an  era;  the 
world  seemed  as  a  seething,  molten  world,  in  genetic 

6* 


130  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

agitation.  It  was  sucli  a  world,  that  was  at  once 
overlaid  by  vast  strata  of  adamantine  despotisms. 
No  wonder  the  earthquake  was  bred  in  the  deejDS 
and  soon  burst  forth;  that  those  strata  were  torn 
asunder,  and  the  infernal  world  seemed  to  yawn 
under  modern  civilization. 

But  again,  while  this  terrible  despotism  over  the 
society  of  Euroj^e  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  was  producing  an  impulse  toward  a  pro- 
found and  universal  skepticism  in  the  realm  of  philo- 
sophy, tending  to  propagate  itself  through  all 
thought  and  feeling,  it  was  especially  effectual  to 
generate  unbelief  in  the  realm  of  religion.  It  necessi- 
tated this  first  by  its  war  on  the  riglit  of  private  judg- 
inent  in  matters  of  religion.  Despotism  seated  on 
the  pontifical  or  on  the  royal  and  archiepiscopal 
thrones  of  Europe,  with  steel-clad  legions  as  its  instru- 
ment, forbade  the  nations  below  to  reason  or  judge 
for  themselves,  on  questions  of  religious  faith.  The 
exercise  of  this  right  they  pursued  as  high  treason 
against  God  and  the  king.  They  pronounced  it 
liable  to  the  extremest  punishment  of  human  power 
and  the  pains  of  eternal  damnation.  Each  State 
assumed  to  be  responsible  for  the  religious  belief  of 
its  subjects ;  and  almost  every  State  in  Europe,  Pro- 
testant or  Catholic,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
established  platforms  of  faith  and  worship  for  its 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  131 

subjects,  wMcli  it  was  bound  to  enforce  at  all 
hazards.  To  wink  at  dissent,  was  a  crime  against 
Heaven  and  the  souls  of  men.  Princes  also  were 
impelled  the  more  strongly  towards  the  enforcement 
of  religious  uniformity,  from  the  spectacle  of  the  reli- 
gious and  civil  wars  of  the  previous  age  of  the 
Lutheran  reform ;  a  spectacle  leading  them  to  regard 
religious  uniformity  as  essential  to  national  unity 
and  strength.  Everywhere  they  had  seen,  in  that 
intolerant  period,  theological  dissensions  fomented 
and  exasperated  to  civil  wars. 

From  these  and  other  causes,  all  over  Christendom, 
at  this  period,  the  potentates  and  prelates  of  Europe 
present  the  nations  with  creeds  ;  to  deny  which  was 
to  bring  on  them  the  secular  as  well  as  spiritual 
sword ;  even  to  doubt  which,  exposed  to  the  pains 
of  hell.  In  short  they  denied  to  individual  man  tho 
right  of  reasoning  at  all  on  what  they  had  once 
determined  in  spiritualities.  The  command  to  him 
was  simply,  ''  Believe ;  and  believe  as  his  masters 
told  him ;  and  as  often  as  they  told  him ;  and  as  fast 
as  they  told  him."  Indeed  sometimes,  as  under 
Henry  YIII.  of  England,  it  was  hard  for  the  subject 
to  keep  up  with  the  swift-footed  changing  faith  of 
his  tyrant.  He  miglit  be  burned  for  believing  to 
day  what  he  would  have  been  hung  for  denying  yes- 
terday, and  what  he  might  be   shot  for  doubting 


132  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

to-moiTow.  Belief  was  regarded  as  being  as  facile 
and  reasonable  an  object  of  command,  as  paying  a 
tax,  or  putting  on  a  uniform. 

Sucli  was  tlie  tlieory  and  j)ractice  of  governments 
towards  religion,  nearly  all  over  Europe.  But  is  it 
not  evident  that  sucli  treatment  as  this  of  tbe  human 
mind,  necessitates  skepticism,  as  it  regards  the  mat- 
ter whereon  it  is  so  treated  ?  that  to  attempt  to  guard 
any  article  of  belief  by  a  despotism  over  thought, 
must  of  necessity  bring  that  article  into  doubt  ?  You 
compel  the  very  distrust  you  would  smother !  In- 
stead of  securing  uniformity  of  belief  by  suppressing 
private  judgment,  it  is  clear,  both  in  the  light  of  fact 
and  philosophy,  you  make  true  belief  impossible. 
In  the  first  place,  as  far  as  you  can  repress  private 
judgment,  you  take  away  the  power  of  all  belief. 
Talk  and  argue  as  you  please  against  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  it  is  palpable,  it  is  only  through 
its  exercise  you  can  believe  anything.  You  may  as 
well  require  me  to  see  without  my  own  eyes,  or  hear 
without  my  own  ears,  as  to  believe  without  my  own 
private  judgment. 

Dogmatic  belief  is  no  exception  to  this  statement. 
You  believe  on  authority.  You  must  first  sit  in  judg- 
ment upon  that  very  authority.  Even  in  case  of  a 
doctrine,  received  on  the  authority  of  the  Scripture, 
our  private  judgment  must  first  admit  that  authority, 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  133 

from  examination  of  its  authenticity,  genuineness  and 
inspiration.  The  mind  must  exercise  its  freedom  in 
renouncing  its  freedom.  It  must  use  its  right  of 
private  judgment,  to  decide  it  has  no  right  of  private 
judgment.  To  speak  of  belief  then  without  private 
judgment,  is  clearly  absurd  in  the  nature  of  things. 
As  it  has  been  well  said  by  Morell  (532d  page): 
"  In  matter  of  fact,  private  judgment  must  be  exer- 
cised whether  we  will  or  not.  "We  come  into  God's 
world  without  any  mark  upon  our  spirits  to  tell  us 
where  we  are  to  find  the  truth ;  and  it  is  equally  a 
matter  of  private  opinion,  whether  we  determine  to 
work  out  our  own  systems  of  religious  belief  for  our- 
selves, or  whether  we  determine  to  yield  to  the 
authority  of  others.  In  short,  if  the  validity  of 
reason  be  once  destroyed,  nothing,  not  even  revela- 
tion (which  must  be  received  through  its  medium) 
can  save  from  universal  skepticism." 

It  is  evident  then,  a  war  on  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  is  a  war  on  all  belief  As  far  as  it  is  suc- 
cessful, it  must  beget  universal  skepticism.  The 
more  stringent  and  omnipresent  the  despotism,  the 
more  terrible  the  destruction  of  genuine  belief 
among  nations.  Force  may  extort  verbal  profession, 
and  coerce  a  nominal  uniformity ;  genuine,  real 
belief,  it  can  no  more  produce  than  force  can  make 
a  proposition  in  geometry  true  or  false,  or  alter  the 


134  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

science   of  optics.     The  submission   of  millions,   or 
their  nominal  assent,  under  the  terror  of  force,  cannot 
prove   a  single   truth,  or   make   a  single  believer, 
throughout  all  generations.     Belief  has  its  own  laws 
and  conditions,  as  much  as  electricity ;  its  necessary 
precedent,  law  and  condition,  is  that  of  perceived 
evidence  ;  it  is  impossible  it  should  come  without  this. 
Force  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  it.     It  is  utterly 
and  eternally  alien  from  it ;  not  by  the  breadth  of 
worlds,  but  by  the  difference  of  nature  and  being ; 
it  is  of  another  universe.     Force  may  produce  hyj)o- 
crisy,  or  a  sham  and  semblant  faith,  and  these  by  the 
loathing  reaction  they  provoke,  and  by  the  general 
distrust  they  breed,  become  a  prolific  source  of  skep- 
ticism ;  both  in  the  individual  conscious  of  the  false- 
hood, and  in  observers.     This  has  ever  been  one  of 
the  curses  of  a  hollow  faith,  and  of  a  tyrannous 
church.     They   discredit   all    genuine    belief;    and 
smite, the  earth  with  the  plague  of  universal  distrust. 
In  the  second  place,  war  on  the  right  of  private 
judgment  enfeebles  belief,  where  it  does  not  destroy 
it.     Belief  will  be  impotent  or  will  have  the  mastery 
of  the  soul,  just  in  proportion  as  the  mind  is  conscious 
of  having  in  some  form  used  its  own  private  judg- 
ment, i.  e.  its  own  reason,   in  the   matter.     Hence 
tempted  restriction  on  this  right  afflicts  nations  with 
feebleness  or  paralysis  of  faith ;  which  thus  becomes 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  135 

inadequate  to  resist  any  strong  or  subtle  attacks,  and 
is  ever  ready  in  the  hour  of  trial  to  pass  to  doubt 
or  a  negation  of  all  belief.  Such  faith  is  faith  with- 
out courage  or  armor,  yea,  faith  without  substance  at 
all ;  a  mere  shadowy,  em^^ty  form. 

Thus  spiritual  despotism,  when  the  pressure  of  fear 
is  removed,  is  ever  the  prolific  parent  of  infidelity. 
And  thus,  in  the  ages  of  which  we  speak,  it  is 
evident,  independent  of  the  subsequent  melancholy 
testimony  of  history,  that  despotism  must  have  pre- 
pared a  general  era  of  unbelief,  by  making,  when 
completely  successful,  genuine  faith  impossible  ;  and 
by  rendering,  when  it  was  partially  so,  all  belief 
timid,  distrustful,  feeble,  and  incapable  of  resistance 
to  the  epidemic  temptations  and  passions  of  the  age. 
Indeed,  I  am  sure  I  need  not  argue  this  point  here. 
Deny  to  us  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  we 
have  no  judgment  at  all;  mere  negation,  no  belief, 
no  faith,  are  all  that  is  left  us. 

I  cannot  sufficiently  express  my  detestation  of  a 
doctrine  that  thus  strips  man  of  humanity.  Re- 
nounce my  right  of  private  judgment  and  that  in 
matters  of  religion  !  What  is  it  but  to  renounce  my 
intellectual  personality ! — my  moral  manhood  ! — my 
very  spiritual  identity ! — to  abdicate  the  prime  j^rero- 
gative  of  my  eternal  soul !  Such  a  war  as  we  have 
described,  waged  by  spiritual  despotism  on  this  right, 


136  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

could  only  darken  nations ;  leave  tliem  to  grope  on 
their  gloomy  way  without  knowledge  or  manhood ; 
and  with  no  principles  to  withstand  the  sophisms  of 
the  caviller,  or  to  rebuild  their  religious  belief  when 
superstitions  and  falsities  had  been  rent  away.  Just 
as  in  historic  fact,  the  nations  of  central  Europe  were 
left,  when,  under  the  attacks  of  the  new  and  daring 
skeptical  philosophy,  the  faith  of  kingdoms  seemed 
almost  to  fail  at  once.  This  is  the  second  great  mis- 
chief of  despotism.  For  fear  of  obliquity  of  vision 
it  puts  the  world's  eyes  out.  In  stifling  reason  it 
smothers  belief.  Thus  despots  that  exulted  in  think- 
ing to  exterminate  heresies  with  the  sword,  found 
soon  they  had  been  striking  at  faith  itself.  Thinking 
to  extirpate  a  cancer,  they  had  stabbed  the  heart  of 
religion  itself,  and  lo !  as  in  a  moment,  it  seemed  to 
go  down  to  the  grave. 

But  sad  as  are  the  above  consequences  of  religious 
tyranny  on  the  faith  of  nations^  its  first  and  deadliest 
mischiefs  are  inflicted  on  the  Sjpiritual  Power  itself 
— the  Church ;  which  is  both  its  instrument  and  its 
victim.  Let  us  then,  in  tracing  the  consequences  of 
despotism  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centu- 
ries, look  first  at  its  efi'ects  here.  We  shall  find  it, 
whichever  way  we  look,  a  Devil  whose  name  is 
Legion. 

And  first,  such   despotism   as  above  delineated, 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  137 

must  emasculate  and  disarm  the  natural  champions 
of  religious  faith  among  a  people.  It  must  breed 
in  a  church  a  logical  imbecility  and  cowardice,  an 
illiterateness  and  indolence,  that  shall  make  it  incom- 
petent to  defend  Christianity  against  its  assailants ; 
and  when  the  enemy  shall  come  in  like  a  flood,,  there 
shall  be  none  to  lift  up  a  banner  against  him.  Thus 
it  will  produce  infidelity,  through  intellectual  im- 
becility in  the  spiritual  order.  Despotism  effects 
this  imbecility  variously.  First. — Its  war  on  private 
judgment  necessarily  makes  the  faith  of  the  spiritual 
order  itself,  as  well  as  that  of  nations,  feeble,  ignorant 
and  timid,  as  shown  above.  Second. — It  takes  away 
from  churchmen  the  necessity  of,  and  incentives 
to,  intellectual  culture  and  discipline,  and  induces  a 
haughty  indolence  and  arrogant  security. — "  What  is 
the  use  or  demand  for  argument  and  erudition,  when 
simj^le  authority  and  mere  force  can  settle  everything 
so  much  more  summarily  and  unanswerably  ?  Why 
vex  my  brains  and  disturb  a  luxurious  ease  to  dis- 
cover and  arrange  historical,  philological  or  philoso- 
phical evidence  to  confute  the  misbeliever,  when  a 
brief  dash  of  the  pen  to  the  magistrate  or  the  ofiicial 
of  the  Holy  Office,  answers  every  purpose  just  as 
well  ?  Yea,  may  be  the  more  effectual  to  the  saving 
of  his  soul,  by  bringing  him  more  promptly  to  a 
sense  of  the  evil  of  his  ways.     Certainly  it  is  easier 


138  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

to  imprison  a  man  than  to  answer  his  arguments  ; — 
to  burn  or  behead  him,  a  prompter  process  than  to 
refute  him  ;  besides,  it  is  a  readier  way  of  soothing 
our  wounded  vanity  or  avenging  an  affront  to  our 
intellectual  pride.  Why  take  the  trouble  to  gore  a 
man  with  the  horns  of  an  intellectual  dilemma,  when 
you  can  impale  his  body  at  once  on  the  stake  ?  Why 
rack  him  with  logical  torture,  when  you  can  break 
him  alive  on  the  wheel  ?  Why  weary  yourself  with 
philosophies  and  philologies  and  the  labor  of  reason- 
ing, when  the  thumbscrew,  the  scourge,  the  shears, 
and  the  glowing  brand,  shall  show  the  miscreant 
misbeliever  he  is  in  an  evil  case,  so  much  the 
quicker  ?" 

Nothing  sooner  enervates  the  intellect  or  dwarfs 
the  erudition  of  the  champions  of  the  Church,  than 
the  conscious  possession  of  arbitrary  and  absolute 
power. — "  Why  strengthen  myself  with  learned 
authorities,  when  I  have  a  hundred  thousand  men  to 
back  me  ?  Why  attempt  to  quench  heresy  by  argu- 
ment, when  I  may  at  once  snuff  it  out  in  blood? 
Let  dissent  fret  itself  as  it  may,  shall  it  trouble  me  in 
the  awful  sanctuary  of  my  palace  and  behind  my 
rampart  of  fortresses  and  standing  armies  ?  Shall  I 
bother  myself  with  their  impudent  '  logical  points  V 
Why,  I  have  half  a  million  of  steel  ones,  comprehen- 
sible by  the  most  asinine  obstinacy !     Tliey  refuse 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  139 

antlioritj  ? — they  want  light,  do  they  ?  The  stupid 
re23robates  !  A  little  earthly  flame,  that  shall  give 
them  a  foretaste  of  the  eternal  illumination,  shall  dis- 
pel the  darkness  of  their  minds  wonderfully." — ^E'ow 
nothing  tends  so  much  to  indolence  and  an  enervat- 
ing security  as  this  conscious  power  of  the  summary 
23rocesses  of  force. 

ISTo thing  again  is  more  fatal  to  truly  liberal  learn- 
ing and  intellectual  vigor,  than  the  feeling  that  you 
are  sichjected  to  such  power ;  the  consciousness  of  the 
duty  and  necessity  of  the  implicit  submission  of  faith 
and  life  to  the  enactments  of  mere  unreasoning 
authority.  The  conscientious  or  indolent  disuse  of 
your  own  reason  from  causes  above  enumerated, 
must  of  itself  superinduce  feebleness  and  paralysis 
of  it,  and  an  indisposition  to  its  exercise.  But  when 
that  exercise  becomes  nugatory^  how  few  will  resort 
to  it !  Why  plague  yourself,  you  will  reason,  with 
patient  and  weary  study,  when  you  know  the  ulti- 
mate fruit  and  result  of  all  your  toil — be  it  never  so 
long — is  here  readily  furnished,  in  dogmas  you  are 
determined  at  last  to  receive ;  yea,  which  you  know 
you  Tnust  receive  %inqiiestioning^  or  be  damned  for 
both  worlds. 

Why  afflict  myself  with  reasoning,  when  reasoning 
cannot  at  all  alter  my  conclusions,  but  can  only 
tempt  me  to  eternal  perdition?      Why  annoy  my 


140  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

head  with  sciences  when  an  infallible,  absolute 
authority  has  already  established  its  unalterable  ordi- 
nances for  all  science,  physical  or  metaphysical, 
mathematical  or  moral?  What  availed  optics, 
mechanics  and  geometry,  against  cardinals  and 
schoolmen,  to  the  poor  wretches  relying  on  such 
delusions  of  Satan?  What  had  they  done  for  Gali- 
leo, but  to  snare  him  into  the  wrath  of  God  and  the 
Church?  What  if  they  did  prove  that  the  earth 
moved  round  the  Sun  ?  Could  the  earth  move  con- 
trary to  the  decisions  of  the  pontiff?  Was  not  the 
Copernican  system  a  heresy?  Was  not  that  enough? 
Why  tempt  the  mind  with  scientific  demonstrations, 
which  you  know  beforehand  are  but  the  illusions  of 
the  Devil  ?  And  as  for  the  power  of  the  confutation 
of  heretics,  what  need  of  learning  or  argument  for 
that?  Had  not  a  short-hand  method  been  taken 
effectually  to  bring  Galileo  to  his  senses,  and  stop 
his  accursed  tongue  and  the  impious  movement  of 
the  earth  against  papal  ordinance,  at  once?  Such 
would  naturally  be  the  reasoning  of  a  minister  and 
disciple  of  spiritual  despotism. 

It  is  obvious  such  despotism  must  have  discou- 
raged science — made  logic  superfluous,  and  taken 
away  from  the  spiritual  order  all  the  common 
premiums  of  successful  learning  and  independent 
thought.     Could  the  mind  gather  strength  or  bold- 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  141 

ness  of  wing,  while  fluttering  for  ever  in  the  cage  of 
an  iron,  changeless,  ecclesiastic  system,  or  struggling 
in  the  meshes  and  convolutions  of  Aristotelian  sub- 
tleties?— or  achieve  comprehensiveness  of  range, 
while  working  a  scholastic  treadmill  or  gyrating  like 
a  tethered  beast,  round  the  fixture  of  some  pontific 
decretal  ? 

History  does  not  leave  us  to  mere  inferences  on 
these  points.  The  disastrous  influence  of  spiritual 
despotism  of  all  kinds  on  the  intellectual  power  of 
its  ministry,  is  abundantly  attested  by  facts.  That 
of  Eome  on  the  ministers  of  her  communion,  was 
quickly  apparent  in  contrast  with  nations  of  the 
opposite  party,  after  the  Eeformation,  and  is  gloomily 
apparent  this  hour;  shading  with  deeper  coloring 
the  countries  of  her  dominion,  on  the  map  of  the 
world.  The  history  of  Ecclesiastical  Literature  for 
the  last  three  centuries,  in  Spain,  France,  Italy  and 
Germany,  is  full  of  melancholy  proofs  of  this  compa- 
rative deterioration  and  imbecility.  At  present  1 
refer  you  only  to  the  French  church,  after  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Huguenots  had  taken  away  the  stimulus 
of  rivalry,  and  the  necessity  of  self  defensive  efibrt. 
The  security,  relaxation,  and  haughty  indolence  of 
absolute  power,  ensued.  The  consequence  was,  that 
when  the  awful  exigency  of  the  eighteenth  century 
came  upon  her,  and  the  wheel  and  stake  and  Bastille 


142  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

could  no  longer  silence  the  voice  of  thonglit,  nor 
pontifical  authority  nor  decrees  of  the  Sorbonne 
could  settle  all  questions  of  science  and  theology,  the 
French  church  seemed  utterly  imbecile,  and  almost 
without  a  struggle  troddon  down  in  the  dust  by  the 
new  philosophy.  The  French  church  was  dumb 
before  its  foes.  Religion,  in  its  evil  hour,  had  no 
defenders.  Says  Macaulay,  "  Everything  gave  way 
to  the  activity  and  zeal  of  the  new  reformers.  In 
France  every  man  distinguished  in  letters  was  found 
in  their  ranks.  Every  year  gave  birth  to  works  in 
which  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Church  were 
attacked  with  argument,  invective  and  ridicule. 
The  Church  made  no  defence,  except  by  acts  of 
power.  Censures  were  pronounced,  editions  were 
seized,  insults  offered  to  the  remains  of  infidel 
writers;  but  no  Bossuet  nor  Pascal  came  forth  to 
encounter  Yoltaire.  There  appeared  not  a  single 
defence  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  which  produced  any 
considerable  effect,  or  which  is  now  remembered. 
A  bloody,  unsparing  persecution,  like  that  which  put 
down  the  Albigenses,  might  have  put  down  the  phi- 
losophers. But  the  time  for  De  Montforts  and 
Dominies  had  gone  by.  The  punishments  which  the 
priests  were  still  able  to  inflict,  were  sufiicient  to 
irritate,  but  not  sufficient  to  destroy.  Orthodoxy 
soon  became  the  badge  of  ignorance  and  stupidity." 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM.  143 

Can  we  wonder,  Christianity  being  left  exclnsively 
with  such  defenders,  that  infidelity  had  its  own  way 
with  everything  ? 

Thus  despotism  prepares  for  infidelity  by  intellec- 
tually enfeebling  and  disarming  the  Church. 


144  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

Despotism  Corrupts  the  Spiritual  Power,  through  Hierarchy,  Confes- 
sional, Celibacy,  Separation  of  Power  from  the  People  ;  Peculiar 
Corruptions  of  Politico-Ecclesiastical  Despotism,  especially  around 
the  Thrones  of  Central  Europe,  in  the  17th  and  18th  centuries — 
Cardinal  Dubois — Regent  of  Orleans — Louis  15th — Christianity 
made  a  Religion  of  Force — Terrible  pressure  of  Spiritual  Despotism 
the  precedent  ages — Reaction  as  the  Force  applied — England  and 
in  France  compared — Christianity  hated  of  the  Nations  as  the  ally 
of  Secular  Tyranny— Infidelity  from  Superstition — from  Infalli- 
bility. Essential  and  immortal  malignancy  of  Spiritual  Despotism. 

We  have  thus  far  seen  despotism  destroying  faith 
by  its  war  on  human  reason  and  ecclesiastic  cul- 
tm-e.  A  deadlier  aspect  of  the  same  evil  cause  now 
engages  us.  Despotism  again,  breeds  unbelief,  inas- 
much as  it  comijpts^  while  it  darkens  and  emasculates 
the  spiritual  power.  Thus,  spiritual  despotism  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  produced  infi- 
delity, not  only  by  mental  feebleness,  indolence, 
illiterateness  in  the  clergy  (the  natural  defenders  of 
Christianity),  but  also  still  more,  by  generating 
among  them  a  corrwption  of  morals  tending  to  repel 
mankind  from  the  religion  they  profess  to  represent. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  145 

Despotism  ever  fouls  its  own  instruments.  Spiritual 
despotism  does  this  by  the  relations  it  establishes 
between  the  grades  of  the  hierarchy,  and  between 
the  hierarchy  and  the  people.  First  the  intercourse 
of  the  different  orders  of  the  clergy  with  each  other 
and  with  the  laity,  an  intercourse  of  absolute  autho- 
rity on  the  one  hand,  with  implicit  obedience  and 
servility  on  the  other,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  mischiev- 
ous to  the  morals  of  both ;  producing  the  vices  of 
intolerance,  ambition,  arrogance,  in  the  one  relation, 
offset  against  those  of  abject  obsequiousness,  lip- 
homage  and  duplicity  on  the  other.  This  is  the  fatal 
vice  of  absolute  power.  It  is  a  double-edged  curse, 
deadly  alike  to  its  possessor  and  its  object.  Like  a 
cancer  or  conflagration,  it  consumes  both  ways,  above 
and  below.  Add  now  to  the  influences  springing 
from  these  relations  of* power,  the  jpeciiliar  institu- 
tion for  the  emjploymeni  of  them^  found  in  the 
Eomish  church,  that  most  complete  instrument  for 
spiritual  subjugation,  which  despotism  ever  invented, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  most  cunning  device  for 
corrupting  Church  and  society  ever  born  of  infernal 
guile,  the  confessional ! — remember,  moreover,  that 
this  institute  was  by  the  same  despotism  conjoined 
with  an  enforced  celibacy  of  its  ministersj  and  we 
shall  not  wonder  at  the  corruption  of  the  clergy  in 

the  Romish  church  in  the  centuries  we  are  investi- 

7 


146  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

gating !  Indeed,  the  confessional  is  another  donble- 
edge  cnrse  ;  worked  according  to  prescribed  rule  and 
question,  stirring  up  the  mind  of  both  questioner  and 
questioned  perpetually  to  thoughts  of  evil,  and  pour- 
ing through  the  clerical  mind  the  moral  filth  of 
Christendom  !  I  do  not  see  how  such  an  institution, 
so  administered,  connected  with  the  causes  above 
mentioned,  could  fail  to  defile  the  purest  order  of 
men  on  earth. 

Again,  despotism  ever  tends  to  corrupt  its  minis- 
isters,  inasmuch  as  they  Jiold  office  and  ^ower  from 
above^  and  do  not  feel  amenable  to  the  common  con- 
science and  reason  of  mankind.  They  hold  their 
position  of  the  central  despotism ;  which  may  per- 
haps be  as  often  propitiated  by  vices  as  by  virtues ; 
especially  if  connected  with  that  merit  (countervail- 
ing in  despotic  administration  all  faults),  viz.  subser- 
viency and  devotion  to  itself.  Moreover,  it  is  the 
law  of  power  in  this  world  of  ours,  that  in  order  to 
keep  it  pure,  it  must  be  in  constant  commerce  with 
the  great  heart  of  humanity.  Its  virtue,  Antseus  like, 
must  often,  for  its  reinvigoration,  touch  the  common 
earth.  It  must  feel  the  heart-beat  of  the  millions 
below ;  the  pulsalrion  of  the  immortal  instincts  of  the 
human  conscience  and  reason,  that  though  often 
smothered,  blinded,  dumb,  still  never  die ;  but  which 
are  born  fresh  with  fresh  human  souls,  in  each  was 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTIS^M.  147 

generation.  Authority  needs  to  feel  that  it  is  amena- 
ble to  the  public  judgment  of  mankind,  and  must 
plead  at  the  bar  of  public  oj)inion.  Cut  off  the  brain 
from  the  heart,  and  insanity  and  death  ensue.  But 
this  was  the  position  of  the  spiritual  power,  in  those 
centuries,  in  all  Catholic,  and  much  of  Protestant 
Europe.  Its  ministers  and  minions  held  of  hierarchs 
and  kings  only.  They  were  cut  off  from  the  great 
heart  of  the  world. 

Eut  corrupting  as  are  all  despotisms,  most  corrupt- 
ing of  all  forms  of  them  is  the  politico-ecclesiastical 
type,  that  associates  itself  so  extensively  with  the 
religious  history  of  modern  Europe.  This  type  has 
its  peculiar  viciousness,  first,  in  the  fact  that  it 
usually  pours  the  coffers  of  the  State  upon  the 
Church,  and  crushes  spiritual  life  under  State  endow- 
ments. It  smothers  ecclesiastic  virtue  under  a  cloth 
of  gold.  The  revenues  of  the  French  church  for  in- 
stance, before  the  Revolution,  from  tithes  alone, 
amounting  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of 
francs  per  annum,  in  addition  to  other  numerous 
incomes,  and  those  from  ecclesiastical  domains, 
(amounting  to  about  one  third  of  the  entire  soil  of 
France) — such  a  revenue,  guaranteed  and  sacred  to 
it,  utterly  independent  of  the  public  reason  and  con- 
science of  the  nation,  were  enough,  combined  with 


148  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

the  other  causes,  to  ensure  the  corruption  of  any 
Church  in  the  world. 

A  second  cause  of  the  peculiar  viciousness  of  this 
type  of  despotism  is  found  in  the  fact,  that  all  sub- 
jects of  the  monarchy  are  of  course  members  of  the 
Church.  The  distinction  between  the  Church  and 
the  world,  is  thus  obliterated ;  both  practically,  and 
in  public  idea ;  and  the  nation  with  all  its  crimes, 
ignorance,  and  vices,  is  at  once  imported  within  the 
pale  of  the  spiritual  communion.  We  need  not  argue 
such  an  importation  must  corrupt  the  spiritual  body 
that  incorporates  it.  Indeed  the  very  idea  of 
religion  is  vitiated,  if  not  destroyed,  by  it.  Its  moral 
tone  must  be  relaxed  and  the  standard  of  ecclesiastic 
virtue  and  morals  universally  lowered. 

Another  cause  of  infidelity  in  politico-ecclesiasti- 
cal despotism,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  secular  as 
well  as  the  spiritual  tyranny,  is  to  be  propitiated  by 
churchmen ;  and  that  too  by  gratifications  and  flat- 
teries addressed  to  the  crimes  and  vices  often  of 
kings  as  well  as  hierarclis ;  and  that  j)olitical  as  well 
as  ecclesiastical  gifts  and  honors,  are  the  bribes 
offered  to  the  clerical  order,  for  such  gratifications 
and  flatteries.  Now,  in  addition  to  all  the  causes 
enumerated  above,  as  vitiating  the  Church  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  let  all  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  149 

emoluments  and  offices  of  State  and  tlie  objects  of 
courtly  cabal  and  faction,  be  thrown  forward  as 
prizes  of  clerical  ambition  and  intrigue  ; — prizes  to 
be  sought  amid  tlie  scenes  and  circles  that  surround- 
ed the  thrones  of  Central  Europe  in  those  ages  ;  amid 
the  bloody  debauch  of  the  Yalois,  and  the  putrid 
dissoluteness  of  the  Bourbons ;  the  hollow  and  prudish 
corruptions  of  the  court  of  Louis  XIY. ;  the  shameless 
and  unspeakable  orgies  of  the  regency,  and  the  foul 
seraglio  of  Louis  XY.  Let  Churchmen  be  obliged 
to  jostle  amid  the  roues,  debauchees,  ruffians  and 
minions  of  the  palaqe  !  to  caress  the  bloody  fingers 
of  a  Catharine  de  Medici !  cater  to  the  lusts  of  a 
Philip  of  Orleans,  or  Louis  XY. !  flatter  a  Pompa- 
dour and  sue  for  a  smile  of  the  infamous  Du  Barri ; 
to  plot  and  purchase  and  slime  their  way  to  greatness 
through  scenes  and  means  like  these,  and  we  are  not 
astonished  that  there  issues  forth  some  strange, 
portentous  product  of  evil.  Even  cardinals  like 
Bohan  and  Dubois,  cease  to  be  monsters  mid  the 
creations  of  such  a  system.  Such  fruit  grows  natu- 
rally of  such  roots.  ]^or  can  we  wonder  when  we 
see  a  €^lurch  in  the  embrace  of  such  despotism,  civil 
and  spiritual,  filling  E-urojpe  with  infidelity  by  the 
spectacle  of  its  corruptions. 

We  bring  the  charge,  then,  against  spiritual  des- 
potism wedded  to  political — of  making  the  eighteenth 


150  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

century  infidel  by  tlie  corruptions  it  had  wrought  in 
the  Church.  It  liad  corrupted  it,  by  the  relations  of 
power  and  servility  it  establislied  between  the  dif- 
ferent ranks  of  the  hierarchy,  and  between  them  and 
the  laity.  It  had  corrupted  it  by  the  double  curse 
of  the  confessional,  growing  out  of  those  relations 
conjoined  with  an  enforced  celibate  of  ecclesiastics 
and  devotees.  It  had  corrupted  the  Church,  by 
smothering  ecclesiastic  virtue  under  State  endow- 
ments and  sinecures,  by  incorporating  the  world  with 
the  Church  and  thus  obliterating  religious  distinc- 
tions, and  consequently  the  religious  sense  in  society ; 
and  by  mingling  up  ecclesiastics  with  all  the 
intrigues,  ambitions,  cabals,  and  dissoluteness  of  regal 
courts,  especially  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  in  Europe.  I  need  not  argue  that  despo- 
tism in  corrupting  the  Church,  of  necessity  made  the 
nation  infidel.  The  avenue  frqm  ecclesiastical  cor- 
ruption to  unbelief,  yawns  ever  open  and  wide  as 
the  gates  of  hell. 

A  tyrannous  church  my  mind  feels  cannot  be  from 
a  true  God.  A  cori'upt  one,  it  knows  cannot  be. 
There  is  no  surer  way  of  producing  infidelity,  than 
by  arraying  a  man's  natural  conscience  against  his 
faith.  Tlie  God  and  Father  of  his  conscience,  must 
be  a  God  of  spotless  purity.  Such  also  must  be  the 
religion  emanating  from  him.     A  religion  that  comes 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  151 

burdened  and  foul  with  crimes,  bringing  its  appeal 
to  the  tribunal  of  the  reason  and  conscience,  is  cer- 
tain, unless  reason  and  conscience  are  besotted  and 
blinded  by  ages  of  abuse,  to  be  driven  away,  igno- 
miniously  rejected  from  that  tribunal.  The  most 
terrible  fountain  of  infidelity  in  all  times,  is  a  god- 
less church.  A  religion  coming  before  me  with 
hands  dyed  in  human  gore,  with  stains  of  lust  and 
gluttony  all  over  its  garments,  and  claiming  as  God's 
vicegerent  to  master  my  conscience  and  bind  my 
reason  and  muzzle  my  speech,  I  turn  away  from  in 
more  than  incredulity,  I  hate — more,  I  loathe,  I 
abhor  it.  But  such  was  the  aspect  presented  before 
the  French  nation  by  the  professed  representative  of 
Christianity  in  the  midst  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  corruptions  of  the  French  church  were,  during 
this  period,  unspeakably  hideous.  Crimes  beyond 
nature  stained  the  robes  of  its  prelates  ;  and  all  the 
crimes  of  common  nature  showed  themselves  with 
imblushing  effrontery  within  the  chancel  and  the 
oratory ! 

All  the  sacred  names  of  offices  most  holy  in  the 
Romish  church,  appear  in  the  foulest  association  on 
the  sin-bleared,  blood-blotted  record  of  those  times. 
Abb6s,  curates,  priests,  Jesuits,  bishops,  arch- 
bishops and  even  cardinals,  are  presented,  in  the 
perspective  of  those  ages,  mingled  up  with  sins  and 


162  CAUSE    OF   INFIDELITY. 

shames  whose  very  hideousness  protects  them  from 
the  vengeance  of  history,  and  permits  in  this  place 
only  an  allusion.     Nor  do  the  meshes  of  intrigue, 
simony,  and  sensuality  that  involve  such  personages, 
isolate    them:    they    embrace    the    whole    French 
church;    and   with  it,   their  web   implicates,   also, 
Kome,  the  pontiff,  and  the  Eomish  world.      This 
corruption  goes  far  back,  mingling  ecclesiastics  with 
the  perjury  and  lusts,  assassinations  and  massacre  of 
the  latter  Yalois.     It   is  somewhat  gilded  over  with 
a  hollow,  hyj^ocritical  propriety,  during  the  latter 
years  of  Louis  XIY. !  though  even  then  the  splendor 
of  Bossuet,  and  the  purity  and  genius  of  Tension  and 
Pascal,  could  not  cover  it  from  the  sneers  of  the  court 
and  nation.     But  in  the  i^nspeakable  orgies  of  the 
Eegent,   Philip    of   Orleans,   who  succeeded  him, 
revenge  was  taken  for  all  past  restraints  and  com- 
pulsory proprieties,  and  no  terms  were  kept  longer 
with  the  moral  sense  of  mankind.     In  them,  a  cardi- 
nal— one  of  the  highest  and  most  sacred  dignitaries 
of  the  Romish  church — of  rank  second  only  to  the 
pope — a  cardinal  appears  as  prime  minister,  buffoon 
and  pander  of  the  horrid  debauch ;  its  chief  figure, 
beside  the  foul  and  blasphemous  Pegent  himself,  sits 
Cardinal  Dubois,  amid  scenes  rivalled  only  by  those 
for  which  God  blotted  out  ancient  Sodom.  "  All  that 
we  read,"  says  Alison,  "  in  ancient  historians,  veiled 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  153 

in  the  decent  obscurities  of  a  learned  language,  of 
tlie  orgies  of  ancient  Babylon,  was  equalled  if  not 
exceeded,  by  the  nocturnal  revels  of  the  Regent,  the 
Cardinal  Dubois,  and  his  licentious  associates."  They, 
would  exceed  belief,  if  not  narrated  by  the  testimony 
of  concurring  eye-witnesses.  To  such  a  length  did 
the  license  go,  that  the  young  Duchess  De  Berri — 
the  beautiful  daughter  of  the  prince  of  that  name, 
one  of  the  noblest  of  France — assisted  at  his  noctur- 
nal revels,  with  his  mistresses  and  opera  dancers ; 
and  even  with  two  of  the  fairest  of  the  troop  occa- 
sionally personated  the  three  goddesses  who  contest- 
ed the  prize  of  beauty  before  the  son  of  Priam !  and 
in  the  costume  too  of  the  fable. 

The  Due  8t.  Simon,  an  eye-witness,  in  his  annals, 
gives  us  sketches  of  these  scenes.  But  those  sketches 
only  hint  at  what  even  the  French  courtier  of  the 
court  of  the  Regent  and  Louis  XY.,  blushes  more 
fully  to  reveal.  Even  those  sketches  I  dare  not  trans- 
late before  yo'u,  nor  dare  I  quote  from  authorities 
everywhere  accessible. 

l^OY  are  these  scenes  in  the  history  of  Dubois 
alien  from  the  rest  of  his  life.  His  vices  were  noto- 
rious before  he  became  cardinal ;  were  the  scandal 
of  the  French  capital  when  he  was  a  simple  abbe. 
Spite  of  all  these,  and  persevering  in  them  all,  he 
rises  to  the  highest  honors  in  the  French  church,  and 


154  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

next  to  the  highest  in  the  Romish  world.  He  is  made 
Archbishop  of  Cambray !  President  of  the  assembly 
of  the  French  church !  Finally,  through  bribery,  in- 
trigue, and  corru^Dt  influences  implicating  the  Romish 
world-7-extending  frojxi  the  suj)reme  pontifl*,  to  our 
astonishment,  to  such  pure  names  as  that  of  Massillon 
— through  means  like  these,  finally  he  is  cardinal  ! 
Crowned^  robed^  consecrated^  with  the  anointing  of 
the  sacred  oil,  with  the  investiture  in  Heaven's  pure 
white ! — the  foul  wretch  leprous  all  over  with  sin ! 
consecrated  by  the  laying  on  of  holy  lands !  and  the 
sign  of  the  blessed  cross !  and  the  invocation  of  the 
Holy  Spirit!  and  the  awful  names  of  the  Father,  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost !  consecrated^  in  the  pre- 
sence of  hierarchs  and  princes !  amid  the  solemnly 
sworn  teachers  and  guardians  of  our  holy  religion, 
and  in  the  delegated  and  constructive  presence  of 
the  High  Priest  of  Catholic  Christendom !  consecrated 
a  Cardincd  Bishoj>  of  the  Homish  world  !!  Such  a 
consecration !  Need  we  ask  what  made  France  and 
the  world  infidel  ?  Such  a  consecration !  It  were 
enough  to  send  a  hoot  through  Pandemonium.  A 
consecration  like  this  might  smite  a  century  with 
infidelity. 

True,  all  cardinals  were  not  like  the  hideous 
Dubois ; — nor  were  they  ostentatious  libertines  and 
voluptuaries,  like  Rohan ;  nor  were  all  archbishops 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  155 

like  the  scandalous  Archbishop  of  Aries,  or  the  infa- 
mous Bishop  of  Sisteron,  or  like  the  intriguant  and 
infidel  Bishops  Bissy,  Tencin,  and  Tressan,  or  like 
the  Bishop  of  Tours,  of  whom  the  witty  Bichelieu 
says,  "He  ought  to  have  been  bishop  of  but  one 
city,  which  should  have  been  resuscitated  for  him — 
and  that  was  Sodom."  Nor  were  all  nuncios  like  the 
licentious  and  brutal  Bentevoglio.  But  still,  thougli 
for  the  honor  of  human  nature,  we  cannot  regard 
them  as  universally  representative  of  the  French 
church,  is  not  their  case  fearfully  significant  of  the 
character  of  the  leaders  in  it? — significant  of  the  stan- 
dard of  the  morals  of  that  Church  in  which  such 
monsters  were  not  even  strange  examples,  and 
where  their  appalling  vices  were  no  impediment  in 
the  attainment  of  the  highest  ecclesiastic  preferments, 
and  offices  of  the  most  awful  sanctity  ?  And  what 
but  skepticism  and  irreligion  could  spring  up  in  the 
shadow  of  such  a  Church  ?  A  glance  at  it  might 
suffice  to  answer  our  whole  inquiry ;  presenting  us 
with  the  incredible  scandals  connected  with  ecclesi- 
astic history  in  that  capital,  which  was  at  the  same 
time  the  focus  of  infidelity  and  of  European  civiliza- 
tion. N'or  could  the  manners  of  the  Church  have 
been  amended  under  the  successor  to  the  Eegent — a 
Church  draggling  its  lawn  and  purple,  as  the  French 
church  was  compelled  to  do,  through  the  filth  that 


156  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

surrounded  tlie  tlirone  of  Louis  XV,  with  his  seraglio 
ofYalliereSj  Pompadours,  and  Da  Barres;  and  the 
unspeakable  infamies  of  ^^Paro  aux  CerfsP^ — infa- 
mies rendering  credible  what  ancient  history  tells  us 
of  the  manners  of  the  courts  of  the  Seleucidse  and 
the  Ptolemies,  and  of  the  tyrants  of  the  Poman 
world:  but  infamies,  even  foul  as  they  were,  sur- 
passed by  those  of  the  royal  cousin,  the  Duke  De 
Chartres,  whose  unnatural  crimes,  infamous  even  in 
those  foul  ages,  have  come  down  to  us  rather  as  a 
hideous  whisper  of  tradition,  a  rumor  shuddering 
through  the  last  age,  than  in  open  historic  record ; 
because  letters  shrank  abhorringly  from  the  task  of 
chronicling  them.  You  will  pardon  me,  I  am  sure, 
for  not  attempting  to  follow  out  more  minutely  in 
offensive  detail,  the  ecclesiastic  corruption  that  min- 
gles with  the  Stygian  flood  of  national  immorality 
and  irreligioD,  flowing  under  the  throne  of  the  later 
Bourbons. 

When  the  historian  tells  us  that  toward  the  latter 
part  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XY.,  "no  one  but  the 
Mng^  and  the  dauphin,  and  dauphiness  evinced  any 
respect  for  religion,"  we  are  not  surprised.  We 
should  suppose  one  such  specimen  of  a  professed 
believer  as  Louis  XY.  was  enough ;  as  much  as  one 
age  could  bear!  One  such  as  this  most  Christian 
Majesty!  himself  a  hoary-sensualist,  "praying,"  as 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  157 

Alison  tells"  us,  in  tlie  intervals  of  debaucli  with  the 
youthful  victims  of  his  harem,  "  that  Heaven  might 
preserve  their  orthodox  principles,"  and,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  numbers  of  these  victims,  which,  enticed 
to  the  recesses  of  his  seraglio,  mysteriously  disap- 
peared from  society,  suspected  by  the  horror-struck 
multitude  of  attempting  to  reinvigorate  his  exhausted 
age  with  a  bath  of  human  blood !  One  such  speci- 
men of  a  believer  as  this  sick  monarch,  dying  in  full 
odor  of  orthodoxy,  and  in  the  peace  of  the  Church, 
partaking  of  the  holy  communion,  with  mistresses  of 
his  lusts  around  his  dying  bed  hardly  yielding  place 
to  the  administration  of  the  awful  sacrament ;  then 
buried  as  his  most  Christian  Majesty,  and  panegy- 
rized by  an  Abbe  St.  Maury  with  funeral  eulogy,  as 
if  a  confessor  and  exemplar  of  saintly  virtues !  One 
such  ^example  were  enough  to  make  the  faith  of  a 
world  retch !  were  enough  to  destroy  all  respect  for 
the  religion  represented  by  such  a  Church,  and  to 
fill  a  realm  with  infidelity.  One  such  specimen  of  a 
respecter  of  Christianity,  all  that  the  kingdom  pre- 
sented !  Yery  probably  !  A  corrupt  kingdom  might 
well  shrink  away  from  beside  him,  and  leave  him 
alone  on  the  platform  of  faith  he  professed  to  occupy ; 
in  horror  at  his  mightier  foulness,  and  in  terror  lest 
the  bolts  of  outraged  Heaven  that  should  strike  the 
monster,   should    smite    all    that    stood  with  him. 


158  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Surely  a  place  beside  Lonis  XV.  could  hardly  be  one 
of  safety,  if  so  be  there  was  a  God,  and  that  God 
could  ever  be  angry.  The  faith  and  Christianity  of 
Louis,  XY. !  It  is  more  than  ridiculous,  it  is  horrible ! 
The  sacrilegious  blending  of  pietism  with  brutal  sen- 
sualism in  his  history,  appals  us  more  than  the  open, 
sneering.  Heaven-daring  atheism  of  the  Kegent.  It 
breeds  infidelity,  too,  more  surely.  The  world  cannot 
believe  in  a  religion  or  a  Church  that  fellowships 
such  scoundrels.  They  will  not  believe  in  God  or 
a  divine  justice  if  its  bolts  strike  not  such  examples, 
nor  in  a  Hell  if  it  be  not  stirred  from  beneath  in  all 
its  depths  to  meet  such  monsters  at  their  coming  ? 

Despotism,  again,  possessing  the  Church,  must  pro- 
duce unbelief,  in  destroying  the  intellectual  and 
moral  prestige  of  Christianity  as  being  a  religion  of 
superior  reason^  and  logic^  and  Uberty,  and  lovet  As 
such  it  came  at  first  to  humanity ;  a  kingdom  of 
truth,  and  relying  on  truth  alone  as  its.  armor  and 
strength.  But  spiritual  despotism  makes  Christianity 
abandon  this  vantage  ground,  and  descend  to  the  level 
of  falsehoods.  It  presents  it  before  the  world  as  a 
religion  of  force,  tyrannic  repression  and  cruelty. 
But  it  is  suicidal  for  a  power  properly,  purely  ideal, 
to  renounce  its  natural  prerogative  of  reason  and 
conscience,  and  assume  that  of  brute  violence.  A 
religious  faith  shrinking  from  the   ground  of  free 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  159 

inquiry  and  pure  logic,  compels  men  to  doubt.  Tliey 
will  resent  and  resist  coercion  attempted  in  its  name, 
as  an  absurdity  in  itself  as  well  as  an  outrage  on  the 
conscious  rights  of  the  human  soul.  A  Church 
employing  it,  they  regard  with  distrust  and  hate,  as 
abdicating  its  legitimacy,  and  becoming  a  tyranny. 
A  system  of  truth,  they  will  reason,  would  have  no 
need  to  resort  to  force,  no  disposition  to  do  it.  Thus 
truth  itself  will  be  dishonored  and  discredited  by  an 
enforcement  requisite  only  for  a  lie.  Men  will  reject 
it  in  scorn  and  hate,  and  indignation,  as  obviously  not 
of  a  God  of  reason,  liberty  and  love. 

Such  were  the  fatal  lessons  of  unbelief  and  hate 
which  ecclesiastic  despotism  had  for  ages  been  teach- 
ing the  nations  of  Europe.  The  time  at  last  came 
when  these  lessons  were  to  bear  their  ruinons  fruit. 
The  ultimate  reaction  was,  we  can  clearly  see,  ob- 
viously destined  to  be  terrible  in  proportion  to  the 
pressure  that  had  borne  down  the  human  mind. 
Sooner  or  later  must  come  the  rebound.  That  mind 
under  the  long  consciousness  of  outrage,  must  in  the 
fullness  of  time  rise  in  indignant  unbelief,  on  the 
power  that  oppresses  it,  and  its  revenge  must  be  ter- 
rible. The  loathed  and  detested  Church  and  every- 
thing associated  with  it,  it  will  cast  away  in  the  day 
of  its  fierce  wrath ;  and  alas,  as  that  Church  is  all 
the  millions  know  of  Cln-istianity,  they  will  cast  away 


160  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

that  too.  The  day  at  last  came,  and  one  wild  cry  of 
derision  and  rage,  "  an  absurdity,  a  tyranny,  a  sham, 
a  lie,"  rang  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other,  as 
the  wizzened  hag,  bedizened  over  with  the  purple 
and  scarlet  of  its  ages  of  harlotry,  was  dragged  by 
the  infuriate  million  to  the  guillotine.  The  con- 
sciousness of  ages  of  wrong,  of  attempted  murder  or 
enslavement  of  the  human  reason,  of  ages  of  blind- 
ness, darkness,  agony  and  chains,  was  burning  at  the 
heart  of  nations,  and  they  rose  at  last  on  Christianity 
itself  in  blind,  frantic  rage,  with  the  battle-cry  of 
"  crush  the  wretch." 

Thus  despotism  begat  infidelity,  by  destroying  the 
moral  prestige  of  Christianity,  and  producing  against 
it  a  tremendous  reaction  of  the  mind  of  the  world. 
The  reaction,  as  we  have  stated,  was  not  unnaturally 
as  the  force  applied ;  the  atrocities  and  extravagan- 
ces of  insurrection,  in  proportion  to  the  stringency 
of  the  precedent  despotism.  The  results,  hideous  as 
they  were,  do  not  sur^^rise  us,  if  we  measure  our 
anticipations  by  this  principle.  The  pressure  of 
spiritual  or  rather  Papal  despotism,  from  the  eleventh 
to  the  fourteenth  century,  was  unspeakable.  It  is 
thus  fully  but  truly  described  by  Isaac  Taylor  in  his 
work  on  Spiritual  Despotism.  "  The  power  of  the 
Church  as  keeper  of  Truth,  and  guardian  of  morals, 
and  disposer  of  souls,  embraced  everything,  provided 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM.  161 

for  everything,  and  applied  itself  to  the  entire  surface 
of  human  nature  and  of  the  social  system.  This  des- 
potism was  at  once  spiritual  and  political,  visible  and 
invisible,  Nothing  could  be  more  refined,  nothing 
more  substantial.  In  the  highest  sense  which  the 
terms  admit,  the  Romish  tyranny  was  absolute  and 
universal.  Men  could  not  think  or  inquire  even, 
concerning  the  processes  of  the  material  world  and 
the  laws  of  matter  and  motion,  without  treading 
upon  ground  which  the  Church  had  preoccupied. 
All  philosophy  was  either  heterodox  or  orthodox,  and 
a  man  might  be  burned  for  an  opinion  in  mechanics 
as  well  as  an  opinion  in  theology.  There  could  be 
no  acquisition  or  enjoyment  of  the  goods  of  life,  no 
marrying  or  inheriting,  no  devising,  no  ruling,  no 
judging,  no  speaking,  no  feeling,  no  thinking,  there 
could  be  no  dying  without  the  leave  of  the  Church, 
or  apart  from  its  favor."  Now  let  such  a  tremend- 
ous despotism  as  this  (the  voluminous  historical 
memorials  of  which  are  thus  summed  up)  be 
applied  to  society  for  ages,  as  was  this,  though 
latterly  somewhat  broken  down,  to  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  what  a  terrible  history  is  epitomized  in 
the  logic  of  that  one  fact ; — what  woful,  wrathful, 
manacled  ages  it  drags  along  in  the  chain  of  its  dire 
necessity  !  And  is  it  not  evident  one  of  three  results 
will  take  place  ?    Either  the  mind  of  nations  will  be 


162  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

crushed  into  imbecility,  stupor  and  despair  (as  in  the 
case  of  Spain),  or  resisting,  it  will  protest  against  the 
abuses  perpetrated,  and  will  resist  in  the  name  of 
religious  reform  (as  in  Protestant  Europe),  or  unable 
to  distinguish  Christianity  from  its  abuses,  it  will  be 
driven  to  reject  religion  altogether  (as  e.  g.  in  France), 
and  the  passionateness  of  either  the  reform  or  rejec- 
tion of  Christianity,  will  be  in  the  ratio  of  the  strin- 
gency and  pressure  of  the  previous  despotism.  As 
spiritual  despotism  had  chained  all  science,  all 
society,  all  civilization,  and  all  humanity,  it  is  no 
wonder  aU  science,  society,  humanity  and  civiliza- 
tion, became  infidel.  Action  and  reaction  were 
equal  by  the  law  of  moral  dynamics.  Imagine  such 
a  pressure,  age  after  age,  bearing  down  without 
remission  or  relief ;  every  interest,  crushed ;  each 
breathing  space,  closed ;  the  clutch  of  tyranny  ever 
remorselessly  tightening  upon  its  victim ;  the  soul  of 
the  world  like  the  terrible '  agent  pent  up  in  the 
steam-engine,  prisoned  under  ever-narrowing  com- 
press of  clamp  and  rivet  and  band ; — when  it  bursts 
that  compress,  as  burst  it  surely  will,  who  shall 
measure  the  ruinous  passion  and  power  of  its 
rebound  ? 

You  will  see  all  these  principles  and  the  multiform 
evils  of  spiritual  despotism,  verified  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  of  European  history. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  163 

In  what  countries  e.  g.  in  Europe  was  it,  that  the 
transition  and  revohitionaiy  periods  in  religion  and 
philosophy  passed  with  the  least  injury  to  Faith  ? 
Was  it  not  England  ?  that  country  where  imperfect 
as  her  toleration  was,  the  right  of  private  judgment 
had  been  most  asserted  and  vindicated,  and  the 
power  of  spiritual  despotism  most  broken.  The 
storm  of  infidel  philosophy  and  sentiment  beat  upon 
her  as  upon  France,  but  she  stood  like  her  own 
island,  steadfast,  amid  the  floods,  while  her  neighbor 
on  the  continent  seemed  utterly  wrecked.  Why  the 
difference?  The  exercise  of  the  right  of  private 
judgment  professed  by  Protestantism,  and  to  some 
extent  accorded  to  the  English  nation,  together  with 
the  open  Bible,  had  in  a  measure  educated  the 
national  mind.  It  could  see  a  Christianity  leyond 
the  Churchy  and  did  not  identify  the  religion  of 
Jesus  with  the  corruption  and  tyranny,  the  absurdi- 
ties and  falsehoods  of  the  spiritual  power.  Discus- 
sion, to  some  extent  free,  had  been  a  conductor  to 
disarm  the  storm  ;  nor  had  the  common  mind  such 
grievous  wrongs  to  resent  as  in  the  neighboring 
kingdom.  IsTo  religious  massacres,  no  edicts  of  the 
exile  of  millions  of  Huguenots,  had  driven  from  her 
realm  the  confessors  and  principles  of  Church  reform 
and  spii-itual  freedom  ;  leaving  her  to  meet  the  storm 
of  infidel  Eevolution  without  intelligence  or  piety  to 
withstand  its  violence,   or    ability  to   construct   a 


164  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Cliristian  and  permanent  order  from  the  ruin.  No 
confounding,  in  the  popular  mind,  of  Christianity 
with  tyranny,  had  made  her  milhons  frantic  with  rage 
against  religion  itself,  and  converted  her  revolu- 
tions into  a  blasphemous  insurrection  against  God. 
"When  the  enemy  came  in  like  a  flood"  on  the 
British  Isles,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  through  cham- 
pions disciplined  in  the  school  of  Protestantism  to 
vigorous,  manly,  Christian  reason^  lifted  up  a  stan- 
dard against  it.  A  Chillingworth,  a  Barrow,  a 
Tillotson  and  Leighton,  an  Owen,  a  Clark,  and  Baxter, 
a  Howe,  a  Wilberforce,  Whitfield,  Wesley,  Butler, 
and  their  compeers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  rallied  round  the  ark  of  English  Faith 
during  this  perilous  era,  and  bore  it  up. 

Protestant  England  had  not  been  free  from  wrongs 
against  the  right  of  private  judgment.  We  forget 
not  the  Bonners,  and  Lauds,  and  Tudors,  and  Stuarts, 
and  her  crimson  statute  book  bristling  with  acts  of 
uniformity,  nor  her  dark  record  of  religious  mur- 
ders, and  imprisonments,  and  exiles.  But  she  had 
offended  least,  certainly  had  been  least  success- 
ful amid  modern  nations  in  attempts  at  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  right  of  private  judgment ;  and  she  alone 
stood  erect  in  the  revolutionary  storm.  She  had 
had  no  dragoonades,  no  St.  Bartholomews,  and  she 
had  no  2d  of  September. 

In  Prance,   contrawise,   spiritual   despotism  had 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  165 

been  seemingly  completely  successful  in  crushing 
down  or  expelling  tlie  elements  of  religious  liberty 
and  reform ;  had  taken  away  the  Scripture,  exiled 
millions  of  Huguenots,  imprisoned  and  silenced  the 
Jansenists,  and  enchained  and  blinded  the  popular 
mind  ;  consequently,  she  had  no  champions  to  stand 
by  and  defend  Christianity  against  the  floods  of 
atheistic  impiety  that  overwhelmed  her. 

To  the  awakened  national  mind,  to  Yoltaire, 
Bousseau  and  the  Encj^clopedists,  she  had  nothing 
to  present  but  a  Church  that  warred  on  enlighten- 
ment, on  science,  on  the  instinctive  sentiment  of 
rights  in  the  soul  of  man,  and  in  whose  skirts  was 
found  the  righteous  blood  of  the  confessors  and  mar- 
tyrs of  ages  ;  a  Church,  which,  incapable  of  repen- 
tance, brought  its  puerile  superstitions  and  its  cruel 
intolerance  down  into  the  civilization  of  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  We  do  not  excuse,  and 
yet  we  do  not  so  much  wonder  at  infidelity  and  rage 
towards  Christianity  in  a  people,  and  amid  philoso- 
phers knowing  of  Christianity  only  the  French 
church  of  the  last  century.  I^Tature,  yea,  the  very 
principles  of  Christianity  taught  them  to  hate  that 
hollow  sham  and  monstrous  caricature  that  abused 
its  name. 

Indeed  the  philosophers — Yoltaire  and  his  com- 
peers, had  the  secret  of  their  strength  in  Christian 


166  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

truths  mingled  with  their  errors,  and  truths  which 
were  valid  against  that  Church  which  they  .mistook 
for  Christianity.  It  has  been  truly  said  of  them, 
"They  were  men  who  with  all  their  faults,  moral 
and  intellectual,  thus  made  manifest  war  on  what 
they  considered  as  abuses,  whose  blood  boiled  at  the 
sight  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  and  who  on  many 
occasions  placed  themselves  between  the  powerful 
and  the  oj)pressed,  and  while  exhibiting  an  irrational 
and  disgraceful  rancor  towards  Christianity,  yet 
had  in  a  far  greater  measure  than  their  opj)onents, 
that  charity  towards  all  classes  and  races,  which 
Christianity  enjoins.  Religious  persecutions,  judicial 
torture,  arbitrary  imprisonment,  slavery  and  the 
slave-trade,  were  the  constant  subjects  of  their  lively 
satire  and  eloquent  disquisitions.  When  an  innocent 
man  was  broken  on  the  wheel  at  Toulouse — when  a 
youth  guilty  only  of  an  indiscretion,  was  burned  at 
Abbeville,  a  voice  went  forth  from  Lake  Leman 
which  made  itself  heard  from  Moscow  to  Cadiz,  and 
which  sentenced  the  unjust  judges  to  the  contempt 
and  detestation  of  Europe.  The  really  efficient 
weapons  with  which  the  philosophers  assailed  the 
evangelical  faith  were  borrowed  from  the  evangeli- 
cal morality.  On  the  one  side  was  a  Church  boast- 
ing a  purity  of  doctrine  direct  from  the  apostles,  but 
disgraced  by  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's,  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM.  167 

murder  of  the  best  of  the  kings,  the  war  of  the 
Cevennes  and  the  destruction  of  Port  Koyal.  On 
the  other  side  was  a  sect  laughing  at  the  Scriptures, 
shooting  out  the  tongue  at  the  Sacraments,  but  ready 
to  encounter  principahties  and  powers  in  the  cause 
of  justice,  mercy  and  toleration."  Such  a  combina- 
tion and  antagonism  could  not  fail  to  be  most  disas- 
trous both  to  religion  and  humanity,  both  to  faith 
and  liberty.  When  Christianity  ceased  to  be  the 
champion  of  justice  and  mercy,  and  to  lead  on 
reform  in  its  attacks  on  the  sins  of  the  times,  faith 
perished.  But  without  faith,  humanity  could  not 
live  long,  and  reform  became  of  necessity  the  genius 
of  ruin. 

The  last  that  we  shall  notice,  and  one  of  the  dead- 
liest crimes  of  spiritual  despotism  against  both  God 
and  man,  was  its  placing  Christianity  in  antagonism 
to  human  liberty,  and  presenting  her  to  the  mind  of 
nations  as  their  oppressor.  Terrible  was  the  wrong 
thus  wrought  by  her  to  the  religious  faith  and  the 
freedom  of  the  millions,  in  associating  Christianity 
with  all  the  crimes,  outrages  and  shames  of  absolute 
monarchy  in  modern  Europe.  She  must  answer  at 
the  bar  of  history  for  the  fact  that  unbelief  is  so 
extensively  the  badge  of  liberal  and  reform  princi- 
ples, in  central  and  southern  Europe.  It  is  she  that 
has  abused  oppressed  nations  with  the  stuj)endous 


168  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

and  deadly  falsehood,  that  in  loving  liberty  they 
must  hate  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  insurrection  against 
Christianity  must  be  the  first  step  in  unchaining 
Europe.  She  must  answer  for  the  general  unbelief 
and  hate  toward  the  Christian  religion  that  pervades 
the  liberal  party  in  Catholic  Christendom;  which 
this  hour  render  the  conjunction  of  freedom  with 
faith  and  order  impossible,  and  make  the  emancipa- 
tion of  Europe  a  despair  for  a  long  era.  Never  was 
there  a  conjunction  more  baleful  in  the  horoscope  of 
Europe,  than  when  the  despotic  Church  and  State 
appeared  in  portentous  alliance  in  its  house  of  life, 
brandishing  their  shackles  and  their  wrath  not  only 
over  this  world,  but  over  the  awful  realms  of  the 
everlasting,  subsidizing  in  their  war  on  humanity, 
not  only  the  terrors  and  pains  of  earthly  racks  and 
dungeons,  but  the  anger  of  God,  the  darkness  of  the 
eternal  prison,  and  the  flames  of  an  infinite  despair. 
This  alliance  presented  religion  itself  as  bolting  the 
dungeon  doors  of  the  nations,  placing  its  own  fiery 
cherubim  over  the  gateway  to  the  better  era,  and 
driving  them  from  the  tree  of  life.  It  was  this  disas- 
trous conjunction  that  exhibited  Christianity  before 
the  millions  as  coming  down  from  the  past,  laden 
with  all  the  sins  and  shames  of  absolute  power  in 
Europe,  for  ten  opprobrious  centm-ies. 

But    could    this    be — could    spiritual    despotism 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM.  169 

throiigli  this  alliance  thus  exhibit  Christianity,  with- 
out drawing  on  her  the  hate  and  execration  of 
nations,  that  went  up  against  ages  of  cruel  oppres- 
sion ?  Could  she  exhibit  the  Church  of  Jesus,  thus 
stained  all  over  with  the  lust  and  bloodshed  of  Euro- 
pean tyrannies,  baptizing  their  frauds,  consecrating 
their  cruelties,  defending  their  abuses  and  absurdi- 
ties, fawning  upon  their  mistresses  and  minions,  and 
canonizing  with  funeral  falsehood  monsters  whose 
names,  rotting  before  their  bodies,  were  already  reek- 
ing in  the  nostrils  of  the  whole  world — could  she 
thus  exhibit  Christianity,  the  partner,  the  tool,  the 
sycophant  of  tyrants  and  banded  with  them  in  their 
conspiracy  against  the  liberties  of  mankind,  without 
shaking  the  faith  of  the  world  ?  Does  not  this  false 
presentation  of  Christianity  by  spiritual  despotism 
furnish  ample  solution  of  the  strange  feature  of  the 
skepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century — strange  for  a 
thing  so  cold  and  negative  as  unbelief — the  rage^  not 
incredulity  simply,  but  the  rage^  with  which  the 
millions  rose  against  Christianity  in  the  revolutionary 
catastrophe  of  its  close  %  Does  it  not  also  furnish  an 
explanation  of  the  present  melancholy  condition  of 
the  mind  of  Europe,  and  of  that  infidel  and  anar- 
chical democracy  w^hich  the  convulsions  of  the  old 
world  are  pei-petually  pouring  upon  our  shores? 
This  disastrous  consequence  of  the  spiritual  despot- 

8 


170  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

isni  of  the  old  world  in  placing  Christianity  in  a  false 
position  before  the  million,  is  one  of  the  gravest 
perils  of  liberty  as  well  as  of  Christian  faith  in  this 
age,  and  even  in  this  country.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
fearful  difficulties  of  modern  history.  Christianity 
must  be  recognized  by  the  nations  as  a  deliverer 
before  they  can  be  either  permanently  believing  or 
free. 

I  ask,  then,  in  the  close  of  our  survey  of  this  topic, 
whether  in  analyzing  and  tracing  the  infidelity  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  we  have  over-estimated  the  evil 
efficacy  of  spiritual  despotism — the  usurpation  of 
authority  by  man  over  man  in  religious  belief  and 
worship ;  the  claim  by  one  or  an  order,  of  mastery 
over  the  religious  faith  of  the  million.  Does  it  not 
present  itself,  primarily  and  ultimately  if  not  imme- 
diately, as  the  great  cause — the  cause  of  causes,  of 
that  portentous  phenomenon  we  have  been  tracing? 
Was  it  not  such  of  necessity  through  its  w^ar  on  the 
right  of  private  judgment,  and  consequently,  on  the 
very  power  or  possibility  of  faith  ?  such  through  the 
intellectual  imbecility,  the  ignorance  and  corruption 
it  wrought  in  the  Church  ?  and  such  through  its  false 
presentation  of  Cliristianity  as  a  religion  of  force  and 
cruelty,  the  enemy  of  human  freedom,  a  sanctuary 
of  fraud  and  lust,  and  the  ally,  accomplice  and  cham- 
pion, of  secular  tyrannies?    And  shall  we  in  full 


SPIRITUAL     DESPOTISM.  171 

view  of  such  facts,  go  about  this  question  with  pru- 
dish and  measured  phrase,  and  timid  and  hesitant 
suggestion,  as  though  it  involved  some  most  difficult 
mystery,  requiring  the  most  profound  and  delicate 
analysis  to  resolve  it  ?  Inquire  after  the  skepticism 
of  the  eighteenth  century  in  the  face  of  such  a  his- 
tory ?  As  well  ask  why  Hell  is  dark  when  the 
shadow  of  the  Devil  is  on  it ! 

Much  more,  shall  we  permit  pedantry  and  priest- 
craft and  the  minions  of  a  spiritual  despotism,  in 
stilted  and  sanctimonious  cant,  shaking  the  head  in 
oracular  horror  at  progress  and  freedom,  to  perplex 
with  Jesuitical  twaddle  of  "  Protestant  license  and 
anarchy'^''  a  question  so  clear  as  this?  a  question 
whose  answer  is  so  intuitive,  that  it  lies  back  of  all 
argument;  so  instantaneous,  that  it  outstrips  all 
process  of  induction,  and  flashes  on  the  soul  with  the 
quickness  of  instinct  ?  a  question,  to  decide  which, 
calls  in  no  more  a  conscious  philosophy,  than  does 
touch  or  taste,  or  the  eye  or  the  ear  ?  which  can  be 
carried  into  the  court  of  Logic  not  at  all,  but  lies  in 
the  realm  of  first  principles  and  primary  instincts, 
that  enter  vitally  and  immortally  into  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  human  soul?  Such  enormities  in  the 
name  of  God  and  Keligion,  casting  no  moral  eclipse 
on  the  world  !  It  must  be  because  there  is  no  light 
in  its  universe,  no  God  in  its  sky !     In  the  presence 


172  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

of  an  ecclesiastical  history  like  tliis,  that  throws  a 
shadow  broad  and  black  as  Tartarus,  to  grope  with 
affected  perplexity  after  the  rationale  of  an  age  of 
unbelief,  and  especially  to  point,  in  maudlin  lament, 
or  solemn  and  pompous  dogma,  at  Protestant  jphilo- 
soj>Jiy  and  liberty  as  its  guilty  cause ! — shall  we  allow 
spiritual  despotism  thus  to  implead  her  antagonist 
for  her  own  crimes  ?  Make  the  light  then  creator  of 
darkness-?  Day  of  the  night !  Accuse  the  morning 
of  the  shadow  of  Mont  Blanc !  the  sun  of  his  own 
eclipse !  Until  the  laws  of  the  human  soul  and  the 
moral  world  are  subverted,  suph  atrocities  and 
opprobrium  with  the  arrogated  sanction  of  God, 
must  darken  the  earth  with  infidelity.  Such  facts 
and  no  skepticism?  That  were  even  the  most 
hideous  portent  of  all !  A  world  in  which  such  facts 
should  cast  no  shadow — that,  sure,  were  Erebus ! 

"We  ask,  then,  in  view  of  the  argument  and  history 
we  have  pursued,  are  we  not  justified  in  regarding 
religious  liberty  as  the  safeguard  rather  than  foe,  of 
religious  faith?  yea,  as  being  the  very  life  of 
religion  itself?  Are  we  not  right  in  contending, 
never  so  jealously,  against  the  intrusion  among  us 
of  servile  and  absolutistic  principles  in  spiritual 
interests  ?  and  the  more  so,  the  more  insidious  are 
their  approaches  ? 

We  know  that  wearied,  disgusted  and  affrighted 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM.  173 

by  the  confusion,  anarclij  and  revolution,  that 
manifest  themselves  in  the  religious  world,  there  are 
some  among  us  who  sigh  for  tranquillity  as  a  supreme 
good ;  and  almost  look  around  for  refuge,  order  and 
repose,  even  in  the  bosom  of  despotic  authority. 
But  we  cannot,  if  we  would,  find  them  there  !  We 
cannot  if  we  would,  thus  lay  aside  the  responsibility 
of  private  judgment.  Heaven  has  appointed  no 
man,  nor  office,  nor  order,  as  infallible  dispenser  of 
its  truth ;  nor  has  it  placed  any  marks  on  minds  to 
tell  us  who  have  the  truth.  Heaven  gives  us  no 
guarantees  against  shams.  Yea,  it  tells  ns  the  truth 
shall  make  ns  free.  He  that  will  serve,  let  him 
know,  he  will  serve  the  Devil.  'No  power,  not  of 
the  kingdom  of  darkness,  will  accept  at  his  hands 
the  impious  surrender  of  his  spiritual  manhood. 
History  moreover,  arises  with  philosophy  to  warn 
us,  it  is  vain  to  seek  permanent  order  even,  under  the 
shadow  of  despotism.  We  have  already  seen  from 
that  shadow,  chaos  and  ruin  rushing  forth  over  a 
cycle  of  European  history.  The  impious  children  of 
old  night  are  there,  the  anarch  brood  of  darkness  and 
wrath.  ISTo !  Not  that  way  at  all !  l^ot  that  way, 
but  in  the  clear,  full,  and  fearless  assertion  of  Protes- 
tant freedom,  in  full  Protestant  light  and  liberty, 
lies  the  only  way  of  safety  for  Church  and  society. 
Nor  could  we  carry  the  world  that  other  way  of  des- 


174  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

potism,  again,  if  we  would ;  any  more  than  we  can 
cany  back  the  earth  in  its  orbit.  That  way  is,  tliank 
God,  closed  up,  we  believe,  for  ever.  The  perils  and 
hopes  oi  freedom  are  before  us.  Through  freedom 
we  are  to  be  saved,  or  through  freedom  to  be  lost, 
for  both  worlds.  Nor  will  we  shrink  back  from  the 
responsibility,  vast  and  solemn  though  it  be :  fron^ 
the  perils  inseparable  from  the  hopes  of  liberty. 
These  perils — the  perils  of  movement  and  change — 
are  in  the  great  necessities  of  progress.  They  are  in 
God's  great  order  of  life.  We  accept  them  thank- 
fully, and  on  the  whole,  fearlessly.  To  us,  life  (the 
life  of  liberty)  is  the  most  beautiful  and  beneficent 
of  things,  or  at  least,  nothing  seems  beautiful  without 
it.  From  a  world  without  it,  we  flee;  our  pulse 
beats  low  and  our  breath  grows  difficult  in  its  pre- 
sence. Its  uniformity  oppresses,  its  very  order  is  a 
torture.  "We  pray  not,  then,  that  the  air  be  prison- 
ed, though  of  its  freedom  be  born  the  tempest !  We 
would  not  bar  up  the  river,  though  its  free  stream 
inundates  the  harvest,  or  bears  the  unwary  to  the 
cataract !  "We  would  not  chain  up  the  ocean,  though 
I  know  ruin  oft  rides  on  its  free  and  stormy  wave ! 
I  would  not  the  wheel  of  the  great  globe  were 
stopped,  though  I  know  its  free  orbit  bears  through 
frost  and  fire.  iN'o  !  free  flow  the  river !  free  walk 
ye  winds  the  boundless  air !  roll  on  in  thy  glorious 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM.  175 

freedom,  O  sea !  free  be  thy  wheel,  O  earth, 
through  thy  starry  zone  !  for  in  your  freedom,  there 
is  life  and  beauty,  music  and  joy !  Take  away  free 
movement  and  all  things  sicken,  grow  feeble,  sad 
and  foul.  The  skies  afflict  us  with  their  eternal 
changelessness.  The  stars  glare  out  from  the  stag- 
nant infinite,  like  the  staring  eyes  of  the  dead.  An 
agony  of  suffocation  is  on  the  air.  E'atuie's  great 
heart-beat  is  stifled,  and  her  vital  currents  curdle ; 
universal  life  gasps  and  faints  under  the  vast 
asphyxia.  Yea,  take  away  its  free  motion,  and  the 
eternal  vault  collapses!  this  universal  organism 
goes  into  dissolution.  So  with  regard  to  the  world 
of  religious  faith  and  order  ;  chain  up  its  movements 
and  you  slay  them.  Repress  the  changes  of  life,  and 
those  of  death  will  enter.  The  attempt  to  conserve 
them  by  the  stereotype  of  despotism,  is  like  attempt- 
ing to  keep  the  beauty  of  the  body  immortal  by  seal- 
ing it  with  the  fixedness  of  death.  Under  that 
marbleized  beauty,  invades  the  worm.  Decay,  cor- 
ruption, dissolution — these  are  the  sure  foredoomed 
changes  of  that  which  under  these  heavens  assumes 
to  be  the  changeless.  Order  in  the  social  and 
religious  world  is  a  thing  not  of  mechanism,  but  of 
life.  It  endures,  not  by  stereotype,  but  by  growth 
and  progress.  The  march  of  Humanity  and  Chris- 
tianity henceforth,  is  not  to  be  taken  between  the 


176  CAUSE    OP   INFIDELITY. 

alternatives  of  desjpotism  with  order  on  the  one  hand, 
and  liberty  with  danger  of  anarchy  on  tlie  other ; 
but  between  two  banners,  the  one  unfolding  to  the 
free  winds  its  motto,  "  Liberty  with  Hojye^  Life  with 
Change^  Progress  with  Peril  ^"^^  while  in  letters  of 
night,  stretches  across  that  other  way  of  hnmanitj 
the  blazon,  ''Absolutism  with  Anarchy,  Tyranny 
with  Torjpor,  Despotism  with  sure  Decay ,  Desjpair^ 
Death:' 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  177 


CHAPTEK  YII. 
FMXCE. 

France  the  most  Powerful  Generator  and  Diffuser  of  Infidelity — 
Her  Position  in  Modern  History — The  Model  Kingdom  of  Europe 
— Oracle  of  Civilization — Her  Early  Culture — Genius — Language 
— Court  Literature — Political  Ascendency — Self-diffusiveness — 
Causes  of  Infidelity  in  her  Civil  and  Ecclesiastic  Constitution  and 
History — Religious  Wars — Albigenses — Huguenots — Separation  of 
the  Actual  from  the  Ideal  the  widest — Reaction  of  Repressed 
Mind  most  Passionate — Daring  and  Revolutionary  Despotism  in 
France  in  the  17th  and  18th  Centuries — Absolutism  of  Louis  XIV. 
— Its  Mischief — Two  Great  Crimes  of  the  French  Church  and 
Monarchy  Generative  of  Infidelity  —  Ecclesiastic  Barbarism 
extending  down  toward  the  close  of  the  18th  Century — Torture 
and  Execution  at  Abbeville  1776 — Despotism  in  France  applied 
to  a  Mind  the  most  Active,  Daring,  Witty  and  Philosophic  in 
Europe. 

In  om*  view  of  the  great  defection  of  the  human 
mind  from  Christianity  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  we  have  thus  far  been  engaged 
for  the  most  part,  with  causes  and  principles  of 
general  and  well-nigh  of  universal  scope,  throughout 
Christendom  during  this  era.  AYe  now  propose,  in 
further  illustration  and  analysis  of  our  theme,  to  look 
more  narrowly  at  the  geograj^Tiio  centre  and  focus 

8* 


178  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

of  the  plague.  That  view  will  develop  important 
principles  in  relation  to  the  laws  of  its  origin  and 
propagation. 

In  illustration  and  enforcement  of  general  princi- 
ples thus  far  considered,  it  has  been  seen  that  our 
constant  fountain  of  instances  is  French  history  and 
society.  "We  now  propose  to  direct  attention 
especially  to  that  fountain,  France  itself ;  and  con- 
sider her  especial  efficiency  in  producing  the  sad 
phenomenon  we  are  investigating. 

Eminent  amid  the  causes  of  the  spread  of  skepti- 
cism over  Europe  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  stands  forth  the  prominent  and  command- 
ing position  of  France  in  European  civilization 
during  that  period. 

France  was  in  those  ages  the  most  powerful 
elaborator  and  diffuser  of  infidelity,  as  she  was  the 
most  powerful  elaborator  and  diffuser  of  all  elements 
of  civilization.  The  French  mind  was  the  most 
active  in  Europe — ^the  most  generative,  the  most  dif- 
fusive. Thoughts,  feelings,  ideas,  sentiments,  man- 
ners went  forth  from  Paris  to  the  possession  of 
Europe. 

The  causes  of  this  position  of  France  in  modern 
civilization  radicate  back  to  the  birth  of  modern 
Europe.  The  municipal  remains  of  ancient  civiliza- 
tion, proximity  to  the  scenes  where  ancient  literature 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  179 

and  art  lingered  longest  and  were  earliest  revived, 
the  rise  of  the  Frank  Empire  earliest  amid  political 
or  at  least  national  and  imperial  forms  after  the  fall 
of  the  Eoman  Empire,  were  among  the  originating 
influences.      Subsequently,   Proven9al   culture,    the 
earlier  consolidation  of  the  French  Monarchy  and 
formation  of  the  French  Court,  with  the  most  brilliant 
and  perfect  development  of  chivalry  and    eudalism, 
the  magnificence  of  baronies   and  baronial   courts 
and  their  subsequent  focalization  in  that  of  royalty, 
the  agitation  and  collision  of  the  parties  in  the  era  of 
the  Keformation  and  their  final  equipoise  in  the 
pacification    of   ISTanteS' — these    causes    conspiring 
perhaps  with  the  livelier  genius  of  the  French  mind, 
had  contributed  to  give  to  that  mind  a  culture  more 
mature,  refined,  productive  and  energetic  than  any 
other  in  Western  or  Central  Europe.     And  not  only 
was  the  French  mind  the  most  prolific  of  ideas,  but 
from  influences  hereafter  to  be  specified,  it  was  the 
most  likely  of  all  to  reflect  the  skeptical  genius  of 
the  age. 

The  above  causes  of  earlier  culture  and  of  finer 
and  livelier  energy  in  the  French  mind,  tended  with 
other  influences  to  make  France  also  the  most  power- 
ful diffuse!'  of  her  civilization,  whatever  it  might  be. 
To  this  result  conspired  moreover  the  distinctive 
personal  genius  of  brilliant  and  powerful  monarchs. 


180  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Thus,  in  consequence  of  all  these  causes,  in  France 
earliest  amid  the  nations  of  modern  Europe,  the  regal 
court  having  absorbed  the  baronial,  coercing  or 
alluring  the  noblesse  from  their  fastnesses  to  the 
Capital,  Paris  had  become  France,  and  France 
under  the  Yalois  and  Bourbons,  had  become  the 
metropolis  of  civilization  itself;  the  model  kingdom 
of  Europe ;  the  most  consolidated,  powerful,  brilliant 
and  courtly  amid  its  monarchies,  and  with  a  type  of 
cultui-e  the  most  polished  and  cosmopolite.  She  was 
leader  in  the  literary,  social  and  political  realm  ;  the 
standard  of  taste,  manners,  literature  and  philosophy 
as  well  as  of  civil  and  military  administration  and  of 
diplomacy.  Her  genius  was  mistress  in  saloons  and 
academies,  in  the  cabinet  and  on  the  field  of  battle. 
What  was  French  was  sure  to  become  European.  A 
peculiar  vivacity  and  polish  had  given  a  peculiar 
diffusiveness  to  her  intellectual  and  social  culture. 
Her  Court  became  the  mirror  of  gallantry  and  gaiety, 
of  wit  and  grace,  and  of  brilliant  and  elegant  disso- 
luteness. TJnder  the  corrupting  though  splendid 
rule  of  Francis  I.  and  Henry  lY.  the  vigorous  and 
sagacious  administration  of  Eichelieu,  and  especially 
by  the  magnificence  of  arts  and  arms  under  the 
ambitious  Louis  XIY.,  she  had  ^been  conducted  for- 
ward almost  to  the  attainment  of  universal  empire, 
not  only  in  politics  but  in  civilization. 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  181 

A  galaxy  of  great  men,  brilliant  generals,  states- 
men, courtiers  and  ecclesiastics,  of  poets,  orators 
and  philosophers,  illustrates  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  in  France;  but  they  gather 
especially  in  a  sidereal  coronal  around  the  throne  of 
the  grand  Monarque.  It  will  suffice  to  name  a 
Cond^,  Turenne,  Colbert,  Louvois,  Yillars,  Luxem- 
bourg, among  statesmen  and  generals  the  first  of  the 
age ;  and  allude  to  the  genius  of  a  Corneille,  Moliere 
and  Eacine,  in  the  di^ama;  a  La  Fontaine,  Des 
Cartes,  Boileau,  Malebranche  and  Boyle  in  philoso- 
phy; or  a  Bourdaloue,  Fen^lon,  Bossuet  and 
Massillon,  in  sacred  eloquence ;  all  of  these,  and  hosts 
of  others  of  world-wide  fame,  constellating  round  the 
reign  of  Louis  XIY.  During  the  eighteenth  century, 
Paris  became  the  intellectual,  social  and  political 
captial  of  Christendom ;  Yersailles,  the  supreme 
court  of  European  culture.  The  French  language, 
with  its  facile,  insinuating,  conversable  genius  became 
every  where  the  common  medium  of  intercourse  for 
the  courtly  and  the  learned ;  the  French  monarch, 
the  most  perfect  and  brilliant  example  of  absolute 
power,  the  study  and  model  of  all  despots.  Li 
short  to  an  extent  never  equalled  by  any  other 
nation  in  modern  times,  France  became  the  oracle  of 
civilization. 

We  have  to  add  also  to  the  above  causes  of  the 


182  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

peculiar  diffusiveness  of  French  civilization  in  the 
eigliteentli  centmy,  the  centrality  of  her  geographic 
position,  placing  her  ailiong  and  between  the  most 
powerful  European  States;  and  also  the  peculiar 
complaisance  and  sympathy,  the  versatility,  sociabi- 
lity and  geniality,  of  the  French  mind ;  which  seem 
to  have  distinctively  marked  it  all  through  modern 
history,  and  have  made  it  the  most  self  diffusing 
in  Europe;  insomuch  that  Guizot  states  truly  "It  is 
necessary  wherever  an  idea  is  born,  it  should  pass 
through  the  medium  of  the  French  mind  in  order  to 
take  possession  of  Europe." 

All  the  above  causes  combined  to  make  France  in 
the  eighteenth  century — what  Guizot  terms  her, 
"  the  centre  and  focus  of  modern  civilization ;"  and 
predetermined  the  universal  spread  of  any  social 
distemperature  arising  within  her ;  evidently,  taking 
possession  of  the  French  mind,  it  must  make  the 
tour  of  the  continent. 

But  while  France  thus  was  a  most  effective  self- 
diffuser,  it  was  the  calamity  of  modern  history,  that 
she  was,  at  the  same  time,  of  all  the  nations  of 
Europe,  the  most  powerful  elaborator  and  generator 
of  religious  skepticism.  She  was  so  through  her 
history  and  society ;  through  her  Church,  her  court, 
and  her  literature. 

Let  us  look  at  the  relations  of  some  of  these  ele- 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  183 

ments  of  her  civilization  to  the  unbelief  of  the  age. 
"We  shall  find,  that  while  she  is  the  model  and  oracle 
of  Eiu'opean  civilization,  she  at  the  same  time  exhi- 
hits  in  herself  most  of  the  various  causes  we  have 
already  discussed,  of  the  infidelity  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  existing  in  their  most  effective  and  virulent 
tyjye. 

Her  history  must  have  been  a  prolific  fountain  of 
infidelity.  Her  page  of  religious  wars  and  persecu- 
tions, from  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses  to  the 
expulsion  of  the  Huguenots,  was  amid  the  foulest  and 
bloodiest  in  Europe  ;  bleared  over  with  perjury  and 
cruelty,  assassination  and  massacre.  She  had  during 
the  period  of  the  Reformation  been  convulsed  and 
torn  for  generations  by  religious  wars.  From  the 
sins,  shames  and  treacheries,  the  hypocrisies,  fanati- 
cisms and  atrocities,  of  those  wars,  abusing  the  name 
of  God  and  Christianity,  and  breeding  a  disgust  and 
horror  at  religion  from  the  frightful  dissoluteness  of 
manners  springing  from  them  and  from  the  moral 
collapse  or  relaxation  following  them — from  all  these 
causes  sown  in  her  history,  must  have  sprung  a 
woeful  harvest  of  incredulity  and  hate  toward  reli- 
gion. 

Two  great  specific  crimes  in  her  history,  most 
ruinous  to  French  faith,  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
notice  presently.    We  now  refer,  in  general,  to  her 


184  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

religious  history,  as  peculiarly  productive  of  infi- 
delity. 

In  France,  again,  the  reaction  of  the  human  mind 
against  the  ages  of  intellectual  enslavement  which 
Europe  had  suffered,  had  been  most  passionate, 
excessive  and  anarchical,  in  her  the  revolution  in 
philosophy  had  wrought  most  mightily  and  success- 
fully in  science ;  but  in  the  realm  of  religion,  had 
run  a  course  most  wild,  daring,  impious  and  ruinous. 
Here  under  the  pressure  of  a  triple  despotism  over 
politics,  religion  and  science,  the  severance  of  specu- 
lation from  affairs  had  been  widest ;  the  ideal  and 
the  actual  most  violently  forced  asunder ;  and  here 
in  consequence  the  shock  of  their  rebound  and  colli- 
sion was  destined  to  be  the  most  terrible  to  the  order 
and  faith  of  society. 

In  France,  moreover,  Mammonism  had  exhibited 
its  climacteric  of  fever  and  delirium.  In  her  was 
the  most  complete  dethronement  of  the  religious  idea 
and  most  absolute  supremacy  of  that  of  wealth.  In 
her  the  money  mania  had  wrought  its  wildest  and 
maddest  excesses ;  had  most  demoralized  society,  and 
brought  it  nearest  to  dissolution. 

These  effects  manifested  themselves — not  because 
France  was  worst  or  lowest  in  the  scale  of  European 
nations;  certainly,  not  because  of  intellectual  and 
moral  imbecility.     In  these  respects  other  states  fell 


SPIRI    UAL   DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  185 

far  below  lier.  The  above  causes  of  irreligion  ope- 
rated in  France  with  peculiar  malignancy,  because 
in  her  case  there  was  a  peculiar  intellectual  and 
moral  activity  of  the  nation,  combined  with  inertness, 
corruption  and  imbecility  of  the  religious  power. 
There  was  life  the  most  intense,  passionate  and  ener- 
getic, beating  in  the  heart  of  France;  but  life 
without  religious  illumination  or  control ;  a  life  on 
which  pressed  a  tremendous  despotism  of  force,  and 
toward  which  the  Church  exhibited  simply  repres- 
sive acts  of  power,  not  the  influences  of  principle, 
reason  and  truth.  "When  those  acts  of  power  became 
impotent  to  enforce  submission,  as  they  ultimately 
did,  the  very  impotency  of  their  attempted  tyranny 
irritated  and  provoked  the  excesses  they  could  not 
restrain.  With  some  other  Catholic  States  there  was 
no  abnormal  action,  because  there  was  not  action  at 
all ;  there  was  no  fever,  no  spasm,  no  delirium, 
because  the  national  mind  had  been  stifled  to  long 
syncope,  if  not  to  death.  The  same  blow  of  power 
which  had  stunned  them,  had  however  only  made 
France  blind  and  frantic.  Tyranny  which  does  not 
kill,  maddens.  The  more  crushing  it  be  this  side 
death,  the  more  it  maddens.  In  France  it  had 
reached  that  limit  and  only  that.  In  Spain  it  seems 
to  have  passed  it.  Ey  all  these  facts,  France  was  a 
prolific  generator  of  infidelity.    Amid  them  all,  the 


186  CAUSE    OF   INFIDELITY. 

great  cause  of  causes,  the  one  back  of  all,  as  pre- 
viously shown,  was  despotism — ^the  joint  tyranny  of 
Chnrch  and  monarchy,  extending  over  almost  all  life 
and  every  interest. 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  position  of  that  cause  in 
France,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  We 
shall  see  if  our  former  reasonings  were  correct,  France 
must  have  been  a  fearful  elaborator  of  unbelief, 
through  her  jpolitico-eGclesiastical  despotisjn. 

Her  absolutism  was  the  most  absolute  in  Europe — 
most  absolute  in  Church  and  State.  Her  imperious 
Louis  XrV.  had  become,  to  use  his  own  language, 
"  the  State,"  and  he  might  have  added,  the  Church, 
too.  For  between  him  and  his  will,  he  brooked  not 
baron,  or  prelate,  or  pope.  In  this  arbitrariness  of 
will,  he  was  the  Henry  YHI.  of  French  History. 
At  least,  if  not  ordaining  himself  expressly,  as  the 
ifupreme  oracle  of  religious  faith,  to  his  subjects,  he 
showed  himself  the  most  absolute  enforcer  of  the 
spiritual  despotism,  which  he  chose  to  constitute  or 
admit ;  whether  of  the  pope  or  of  the  Gallic  church. 
Church  and  State  were  bound  in  adamant  to  his 
throne  ;  though  it  was  adamant  draped  and  lacquered 
over  with  purple  and  gold.  The  most  iron  absolu- 
tism was  maintained,  over  the  realm  of  politics  and 
religion.  In  these  realms  an  omnipresent  censorship, 
and    espionage,    watched    and    punished    all    free 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  187 

thought ;  at  least,  all  that  seemed  to  have  any  prac- 
tical  bearings  on  the  outwarrd  form  of  Church  and 
State.  Parliament  and  estates,  baronial  prerogatives 
and  provincial,  and  municipal  privileges,  all  break- 
waters of  despotism,  were  broken  down  before  the 
inarch  of  absolute  power.  The  Huguenots  that  had 
withstood  it,  had  been  ruthlessly  driven  out,  bearing 
to  other  lands  their  resentment  and  despair,  and  their 
millions  of  men  and  money.  Tlie  Jansenist,  seem" 
ingly  worn  out  with  persecutions,  had  been  smothered 
in  prisons,  or  were  repenting  in  exile.  The  blood  of 
Saint  Bartholomew,  if  it  was  the  seed  of  the  Church 
of  its  martyrs,  was  a  slow  seed.  For  a  long  time 
that  bloody  stroke  of  despotism  seemed  to  have 
accomplished  its  cruel  end ;  to  have  slain,  well-nigh, 
whatever  elements  there  were  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty  and  reform,  in  the  French  nation.  Seen  as 
we  now  see  it,  it  was  a  murderous  stroke  at  the  very 
life  -of  France,  that  was  to  be  awfully  avenged. 
Protestantism  was  in  time  to  come  forth  from  its 
bloody  grave,  the  Nemesis  of  Kevolution.  Smothered 
Jansenism  was  to  break  out  anew  in  the  plagues  of 
skepticism  and  irreligion  ;  and  from  Saint  Bartholo- 
mew's fatal  day,  were  to  go  forth  the  avenging  furies, 
that  should  at  last  drag  Church  and  monarchy,  and 
the  nation  itself,  under  the  guillotine. 

But  for  the  time,  it  seemed  as  if  these  stupendous 


188  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

crimes  liad  been  successful,  and  the  triumph  of  des- 
potism, spiritual  and  political,  seemed  hideouslj 
complete,  l^ot  a  tongue  dared  wag  against  it,  in  all 
the  realms  of  France.  There  it  stood,  spiritual  des- 
potism wedded  to  political,  armed  with  the  strength 
and  genius,  the  vast  military  force,  and  the  iron 
absolutism  of  the  mightiest,  most  brilliant,  most 
imperial  monarchy  in  Europe  ;  the  banners  of  olden 
glories  floating  over  its  battlements;  the  muses  of 
grace,  beauty,  and  pleasure,  waiting  in  its  palaces ; 
genii  of  wit  and  song,  and  eloquence  and  victory, 
chained  to  its  throne  ;  and  the  swords  of  the  heroic 
and  the  mighty,  keeping  watch  and  ward  around  it. 
The  cry  and  the  curse  of  the  millions  far  below, 
could  not  rise  to  its  heaving.  The  voice  of  the  con- 
fessors of  spiritual  and  political  liberty,  had  sunk 
with  their  blood  down  to  the  silent  depths  of  the 
earth,  no  more  to  rise.  It  seemed  the  absolute 
triumph  of  absolute  despotism ;  despotism  over 
State  and  Church ;  over  all  acting,  all  speaking,  all 
thinking ;  political,  ecclesiastical  or  theological. 
And  what  provinces  did  not  these  terms  tKen 
embrace  ? 

But  was  it  absolute,  was  it  final  ?  Nay.  Its  very 
brilliancy  was  its  hectic  of  decay.  So  much  genius 
could  not  live  with  so  much  despotism.  Its  very 
completeness  was  a  sure  sign  of  its  fall;  imless 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  189 

indeed,  humanity  was  utterly  stifled  below  it.  For 
down  in  the  dark  and  foul  depths  below  that  splen- 
dor, the  million  crushed,  scourged,  gagged,  blinded, 
still  breathed.  The  fever  of  life  and  all  life's  fiercest 
lusts,  still  rioted  in  its  veins ;  nor  had  its  mangled 
eyes  altogether  forgotten  the  light  they  had  once 
beheld. 

I^ow  need  we  repeat  our  argument  of  a  former 
chapter,  to  prove  that  France  with  such  a  political 
and  ecclesiastical  absolutism,  must  have  been  a  pro- 
lific generator  of  infidelity  ?  A  despotism,  that  by 
its  repression  of  mind  in  the  paths  of  the  practical, 
drove  it  into  wild,  unrestrained,  licentious  speculation 
in  the  realms  of  the  ideal ;  that  by  its  war  on  pri- 
vate judgment  struck  at  reason  itself,  and  all  power 
of  belief;  made  timid  and  feeble,  when  it  could  not 
destroy  the  faith  of  nations ;  and  rendered  the 
Church  intellectually  imbecile,  by  forbidding  the 
exercise  of  the  free  intellect,  by  taking  away  the 
necessity  of  argumentative  conflict  or  defence,  by 
bestowment  of  the  power  of  force,  and  by  'removing 
the  premiums  on  erudition,  discovery  or  scientific 
and  logical  culture ;,  a  despotism  that  corrupted  the 
church  with  gold  and  security,  with  indolence,  ambi- 
tion, servility  and  arrogance,  by  placing  authority  in 
connexion  with  -tyrannic  power,  and  cutting  it  off 
from  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  ;  corrupted  it,  by 


190  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

incorporating  the  world  witli  the  Chnrch  ;  thus  con- 
founding religious  ideas,  and  obliterating  religious 
distinctions  among  mankind ;  that  corrupted  it  by 
applying  to  it  the  pestilent  curse  of  celibate  and 
confessional,  and  by  draggling  its  robes  through  the 
cabal  and  conspiracy,  the  intrigue,  sycophancy  and 
debauch,  of  dissolute  courts,  and  jostling  it  with 
their  parasites,  placemen,  ruffians,  mistresses,  and 
minions !  a  despotism,  that  stripped  Christianity  of 
its  moral  prestige  as  a  religion  of  superior  truth, 
reason  and  love ;  changed  it  to  one  of  force,  malig- 
nancy, and  tyranny;  and  made  it  the  enemy  of 
human  liberty,  and  the  accomplice  and  champion  of 
all  the  crimes  and  scandal,. cruelties  and  oppressions 
of  the  civil  tyrannies  of  modern  Europe  ;  and  finally 
a  despotism  that  invested  the  Church  with  the  armor 
of  infallibility,  as  a  mail  of  burning  steel,  sheathing 
up  all  its  future  with  the  lies  and  crimes  of  all  its 
past,  stereotyping  each  error,  each  folly,  each  sin, 
each  shame,  of  its  history,  however  dim,  distant, 
guilty  or  gloomy,  for  ever  past  all  repentance  or 
amendment,  to  the  astonishment,  abhorrence  and  exe- 
cration of  all  time !  Could  a  despotism,  working  all 
this  in  Frai:ice  for  ages,  fail  of  darkening,  if  not 
utterly  destroying  the  faith  of  the  nation  ?  Was  not 
France,  therefore,  by  the  necessity  of  its  political 
and  ecclesiastical  despotism,  developed  in  our  pre- 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  191 

vious  argument,  sure  to  become  a  fearful  laboratory 
of  infidelity  ?  Having  traversed  the  ground  both  in 
fact  and  logic,  in  a  previous  chapter,  we  need  not 
stop  here  to  go  over  it  again. 

But  the  curses  of  her  despotism  did  not  stop  here. 
It  led  her  into  acts  and  measures  for  the  rej^ression 
or  extinction  of  dissent,  which  made  her  Church  a 
hissing  and  abhorrence  for  a  century,  to  all  the 
enlightened  and  thinking  of  Europe.  Especially  two 
stupendous  crimes  it  led  her  to  perpetrate,  that 
proved  two  deadly  wounds  in  her  own  bosom,  gush- 
ing with  gore  and  the  poison  of  unbelief,  over  cen- 
turies and  kingdoms.  Those  two  great  crimes  by 
which  she  thought  to  purchase  security  and  immo- 
bility, are  now  clearly  seen  to  have  embarked  her  on 
a  wild,  dark,  and  bloody  sea,  over  which  she  was  to 
drift  for  ages  with  no  God  in  her  sky. 

The  two  great  crimes  of  the  Erench  church  and 
monarchy  in  enforceraent  of  sj^iritual  despotism,  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  the  exile  of  the 
Huguenots,  it  is  now  clearly  seen,  avenged  them- 
selves in  the  destruction  of  both.  They  were  suici- 
dal to  French  faith,  French  royalty,  and  French 
liberty,  at  the  same  time;  blood-blotches  on  ]ier 
history,  destined,  as  we  now  see,  to  spread  over  the 
pages  of  at  least  two  centuries.  Terrible  mistakes 
were  they,  as  well  as  crimes.    They  exterminated 


192  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

from  the  realm  of  France,  those  who  alone  might 
have  reformed  both  Church  and  State,  before  the 
irrepressible  wrath  of  the  nation  broke  forth  in  the 
fire  blast  of  the  revolution. 

In  one  of  these  acts,  from  forty  thousand  to  fifty 
thousand,  according  to  the  most  reliable  historians, 
of  the  noblest  and  most  enlightened  of  the  nation, 
were  butchered  in  France  and  the  piiovinces  in  one 
day,  in  the  midst  of  profound  securij:y,  through  the 
diabolic  treachery  of  the  court,  instigated  before- 
hand by  Jesuit  and  priest,  and  congratulated  and 
celebrated  afterwards  by  the  pope  ordering  Te  Deums 
to  be  sung  for  it,  in  the  churches  in  the  capital  of 
Catholic  Christendom. 

By  the  other,  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantz 
in  the  single  province  of  Languedoc,  one  hundred 
thousand  were  put  to  death  under  military  execu- 
tion ;  of  whom  a  tenth  part,  at  least,  suffered  from 
the  frightful  torments  of  the  stake  and  wheel.  Four 
hundred  thousand  at  least  fied  the  kingdom,  and  an 
equal  number  perished  of  famine,  plague,  imprison- 
ment, the  galleys  and  the  scaffold.  The  faith  of  one 
hundred  thousand  more  at  least,  was  crushed  down 
in  tears  and  agony  and  blood,  into  recantation,  and 
the  silent  smouldering  hate  of  ages. 

The  Due  St.  Simon,  a  Catholic,  and  one  of  the 
courtiers  of  Louis  XIY.  and  an  eye-witness  of  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  193 

atrocious  execution  of  tlie  royal  edict,  thus  narrates ; 
"  by  this  edict,"  says  he,  "  without  the  slightest  pre- 
text, without  the  slightest  necessity,  was  one  fourth 
of  the  kingdom  depopulated,  its  trade  ruined,  the 
whole  country  abandoned  to  the  avowed  public 
pillage  of  dragoons ;  the  innocent  of  both  sexes  were 
devoted  to  punishment  and  torture,  and  that  by 
thousands.  *  *  *  -J^-  The  world  saw  crowds  of 
their  fellow  creatures  proscribed,  naked,  fugitive, 
guilty  of  no  crime,  yet  seeking  in  foreign  lands  an 
asylum  from  the  cruelty  of  their  own ;  which  mean- 
time was  subjecting  to  the  lash  and  the  galleys  the 
noble,  the  opulent,  the  aged,  the  weak,  the  delicate 
and  those  not  less  distinguished  by  their  rank  than 
their  piety  and  virtue ;  and  this  for  no  reason  but 
their  religion.  Still  further  to  increase  the  horror  of 
these  proceedings,  every  province  was  tilled  with 
perjured  and  sacrilegious  men  ;  who  were  forced  to 
recant.  In  truth  such  were  the  horrors  produced  by 
the  combined  operation  of  cruelty  and  obsequious- 
ness, that  within  twenty-four  hours,  men  were  fre- 
quently conducted  from  the  torture  to  abjuration, 
and  from  abjuration  to  the  communion  table; 
attended  in  both  generally  by  the  common  execu- 
tioner."    Thus  far  St.  Simon. 

E'ow  we  ask  does  not  this  record  point  to  one  fear- 
ful fountain  at  least  of  the  evil  we  are  tracing  ?    Do 

9 


194  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

not  the  infidelity  and  revolution  of  the  eighteenth 
century  gush  out  of  these  two  great  repressive  mea- 
sures of  the  French  church  and  monarchy  ?  In  the 
first  place,  could  any  nation  in  Europe  have  borne 
at  that  day  such  a  bleeding  of  its  purest,  noblest, 
most  gifted  blood,  its  martyr,  heroic,  sainted  blood, 
without  moral  exhaustion  and  paralysis,  and  without 
dooming  its  future  to  a  reactive  paroxysm  of  fever 
and  delirium?  Could  the  provinces,  as  St.  Simon 
describes,  "be  filled  with  perjured  men,  one  hundred 
thousand  or  more,  that  had  passed  from  the  gibbet 
and  wheel  to  the  communion  attended  by  the  public 
executioner,"  without  the  spreading  as  Alison  asserts, 
of  "  the  poison  of  infidelity  and  irreligion  throughout 
the  realm  of  France  ? " 

Again,  could  the  unspeakable  atrocities  of  the 
dragonnades  of  Louis  XIY.,  according  to  the  state- 
ment of  a  Catholic  courtier  of  that  monarch,  depopu- 
lating one  fourth  of  France,  pillaging  provinces, 
devoting  the  innocent  of  both  sexes — the  aged,  the 
delicate  and  the  noble — to  the  scourge  and  the  tor- 
ture by  thousands,  driving  into  exile  or  crushing  into 
recantation  fifteen  hundred  thousand  j)ersons — could 
this  take  place  in  the  light  of  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  without  drawing  down  upon  the 
Church,  in  whose  name  they  were  perpetrated,  and 
on  religion  itself,  as  far  as  the  Church  was  regarded 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  195 

as  its  representative,  the  indignant  and  scornful 
incredulity  of  mankind?  Could  liistory  remember 
the  noble  Coligni,  his  white  hair  dragged  in  blood, 
his  heroic  form  mangled  with  murder,  and  trodden 
the  livelong  day  of  ruffian  feet  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
— or  the  infuriate  Charles  of  Yalois  screaming  through 
the  awful  tumult  of  the  carnage  from  the  windows 
of  the  Louvre,  "  Kill,  kill !" — or  the  complot  of  the 
Tiger-Cat  of  Florence  with  Jesuit  fraud  weaving 
meshes  for  the  trusting  victims; — could  history 
remember  all  these — much  more  the  Te  Deums  from 
the  religious  capital  of  the  Catholic  world !  and  by 
order  of  its  supreme  pontiif !  that  went  up  as  thanks- 
giving to  Jehovah  at  the  tidings,  as  if  an  orison  of 
murder  to  the  Aztec  war-god!  could  history  ever 
remember  these  without  something  of  that  shudder 
of  horror  that  thrilled  through  nations  at  the  time,  at 
the  dreadful  rumor  of  those  atrocities,  and  without 
breathing  a  chill  of  skepticism  over  all  the  realms  of 
Catholic  faith  where  Bomanism  was  synonomous  with 
Christianity  ? 

"We  direct  attention  to  this  record  in  French  his- 
tory with  no  pleasure,  nor  with  a  wish  to  bring  odium 
on  any  communion  repenting  of  its  past  sins ;  but 
truth  to  our  theme  points  to  these  as  part  of  the 
terrible  causes  of  the  terrible  phenomenon  we  are 
analyzing.      ''  Hence  was  it,"   says  Alison,   "  that 


196  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

philosopliy  confounding  religion  with  atrocities  per- 
petrated in  its  name,  became  imbued  with  skepticism, 
and  the  cause  of  human  emancipation  became  syno- 
nymous in  general  opinion  with  the  overthrow  of 
Christianity." 

But  indeed  the  French  church  would  not  let  his- 
tory forget  if  she  would,  her  complicity  in  the  atroci- 
ties of  the  past.  That  Church  brought  down  into  the 
light  of  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
torture  and  cruel  punishments  of  barbarous  ages, 
and  that  for  the  merest  indiscretions.  For  an  insult 
offered  in  a  drunken  frolic  to  a  wooden  crucifix,  on 
a  bridge  in  Abbeville,  in  1776,  a  youth  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen  years  of  age,  son  of  an  ancient  family  in 
the  magistracy,  was  first  put  to  the  torture,  then  had 
his  tongue  cut  out,  and  was  finally  beheaded.  And 
this  scene  in  the  a2;e  of  Chatham  and  Burke — under 
the  same  sun  that  looked  down  on  a  Pitt,  Franklin 
and  "Washington,  in  open  sight  before  the  wits  and 
theophilanthropists  of  the  Encyclopedia !  Can  we 
wonder  or  regret  that  the  indignant  sarcasm  of  Yol- 
taire  transfixed  the  Church  guilty  of  such  abomina- 
ble cruelty  and  impaled  it  for  the  derision  and  hate  of 
all  Europe  ?  or  that  the  million  with  its  great  human 
heart  felt  there  was  quite  as  much  religion  in  the 
humanity  of  the  skeptic  as  in  the  pitiless  fanaticism 
of  the  ecclesiastic  ? 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  197 

For  Frencli  irreligion  tlien — the  fountain  of  unbe- 
lief to  Europe — we  must  arraign  the  French  church 
in  both  its^theoiy  and  practice.  But  that  disastrous 
theory  and  practice  flow  directly  from  the  spiritual 
despotism  incorporated  in  it.  Its  tyrannous  princi- 
ples and  its  revolting  history  emanate  directly  from 
that  dark  fountain.  Spiritual  despotism,  through 
the  French  church,  must  be  arraigned  then  at  the 
bar  of  history  for  the  great  apostasy  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries. 

Thus  we  shall  find  the  double  despotism  of  France 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  preparing 
an  era  of  unbelief  in  that  kingdom.  Especially  by 
the  repressive  measv/res  to  which  the  alliance  of 
spiritual  and  political  absolutism  tempted  the  Church, 
we  have  found  unbelief  and  hatred  of  the  Church, 
and  of  Christianity,  which  it  represented,  of  necessity 
generated  in  the  French  nation. 

Thus  was  France  a  terrible  elaborator  and  evan- 
gelist of  infidelity ;  not  only  by  the  essential  genius 
of  all  despotism  over  faith,  and  especially  of  a  des- 
potism like  hers ;  but  she  was  especially  so,  by  the 
peculiar  measures  she  took  to  enforce  that  despotism ; 
measures  which  the  human  mind  in  its  native  inex- 
tinguishable moral  sense,  could  not  but  feel  were  as 
alien  from  a  God  of  truth  and  mercy,  and  purity,  as 
Hell  from  Heaven.      The  eternal  instincts  of  the 


198  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

human  soul  must  be  extinguished  before  a  reh'gion 
consecrating  such  horrors  coukl  be  forced  down  the 
throat  of  humanity,  even  though  throttled  and  well- 
nigh  stifled  in  its  own  gore !  Yoltaire's  Dictionary 
of  Philosophy,  Helvetius's  System  of  Nature,  Paine's 
Age  of  Reason,  the  Encyclopedia — they  were  terri- 
ble Gospels  of  unbelief,  but  what  were  they  all  to 
the  history  of  France  herself!  It  w^as  in  itself  an 
encyclopedia  of  irreligion  and  infidelity.  More  fatal 
to  faith  than  the  sneers  and  sophisms  that  hissed  and 
glittered  over  Europe  from  Lake  iLeman,  more 
terrible  than  the  eloquence  of  the  Gironde  or  the 
rage  of  the  Mountain,  was  that  volume  written,  like 
the  scroll  seen  of  Ezekiel,  "  all  over  within  and 
without  with  mourning,  lamentation  and  woe." 

But  in  order  to  estimate  the  power  of  France  as  a 
generator  of  unbelief,  we  have  to  add  to  the  above 
necessary  tendencies  of  despotism,  the  condition  of 
the  French  mind  at  this  time,  to  which  this  despotism 
was  applied.  It  was  arresting  a  ISTiagara  in  its  rapids. 
We  have  said  above,  the  triumph  of  despotism 
seemed  to  be  complete.  It  was  far  from  being  so 
It  could  not  become  so  without,  we  will  not  say  slay- 
ing the  mind  of  France,  but  w^ithout  a  massacre  of 
half  of  its  population.  It  had  not  begun  its  work 
soon  enough,  or  prosecuted  it  ruthlessly  enough, 
bloody  as  it  had  been.     It  required  the  Inquisition 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  199 

and  Philip  II.  and  Spanish  fanaticism  to  accomplish 
the  work.  'Not  could  these  even  have  effected  it 
for  perpetuity.  lN"ow  we  are  to  bear  in  mind,  this 
absolute  repression  of  French  thought  and  speech  in 
the  direction  of  State  and  Church,  i.  e.  in  the  direction 
of  the  great  practical  and  visible  interests  of  society, 
was  attempted  on  a  mass  of  mind,  if  not  the  freest, 
the  most  licentious  and  volatile  and  vivacious,  the 
most  active,  daring  and  irrepressible,  in  Europe — 
mind,  which  had  felt  most  profoundly  the  stroke  of 
the  Reformation,  and  had  sympathized  deeply  with 
that  insurrection  against  the  despotism  of  the  spiri- 
tual power ;  which  in  art,  science,  brilliant  culture 
and  general  literature,  stood  foremost  amid  western 
nations ;  and  which  had  entered  with  peculiar  enthu- 
siasm and  success  on  the  paths  of  free  speculation 
and  discovery,  opened  by  the  emancipation  of  the 
European  intellect  from  the  Aristotelian  and  Scho- 
lastic system,  and  by  the  application  of  the  Baconian 
and  Cartesian  methods  to  science.  No  nation  had 
felt  the  impulse,  religious  and  philosophic,  of  the  age, 
more  profoundly.  Massacre  and  exile  had  not 
quenched  that  impulse,  but  only  removed  those  who 
would  have  enlightened,  tempered  and  guided  it.  It 
left  it  wild,  blind,  guideless,  and  faithless.  Despo- 
tism could  not  annihilate  the  force  that  had  been 
generated.    Its  suppression  could  only  stop  the  relief 


200  CAUSE    OP    INFIDELITY. 

movement  of  progress,  shut  down  the  safety-valve 
and  bind  tlie  terrible  power  within,  with  rivet  and 
clamp  and  bar !  could  it  fail  to  make  explosion  in 
time,  inevitable  and  terrible  ?  Despotism  over  such 
a  mass  of  mind  it  is  evident  could  hardly  be  perma- 
nently successful,  short  of  absolute  extermination. 
Short  of  that,  it  would  certainly  madden  it.  You 
could  not  stop  the  mind's  thinking,  you  might  make 
thought  perverse ;  if  you  put  out  its  true  lights,  it 
would  be  certain  to  chase  false  ones.  Arrest  the 
natural  outblow  salutary  to  life,  it  will  be  sure  to 
break  out  in  ulcers  or  rush  back  in  fever  on  the 
heart  or  in  delirium  on  the  brain.  Such  was  the 
achievement  of  spiritual  despotism  in  France;  she 
struck  at  Heresy ;  she  slew  Faith  !  She  shut  against 
the  nations  the  temples  of  Tiaith.  They  prostrated 
themselves  in  delirium  before  lies!  She  covered 
from  them  the  face  of  Jehovah.  They  rushed  to  the 
shrines  of  Moloch  and  Mammon  and  of  No-God! 
She  plunged  the  nation  into  the  skepticism  of  igno- 
rance— or  of  denying  Christianity  from  not  knowing 
what  it  is.  They  rushed  in  frantic  rage  against  that 
Church  that  abused  the  name  of  Christ  and  Christian- 
ity from  Imowing  too  well  what  it  was.  The  sad 
truth  is,  France  was  without  a  knowledge  of  true 
Christianity.  A  despotic,  cruel,  superstitious  Church 
had  barred  out  spiritual  illumination,  had  wrested 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  201 

from  the  millions  the  Bible,  forbidden  the  free  exer- 
cise of  reason  on  matters  of  faith,  bloodily  repressed 
all  questioning  of  its  own  authority,  legislation,  or 
institutes,  and  forced  itself  on  the  formal  acceptance 
of  mankind  as  being  truly  representative  of  Christ 
and  His  Gospel.  Itself,  with  all  its  hollow  pretence 
and  hypocrisy,  its  corruptions  and  debauchery,  its 
frauds  and  puerilities,  stood  before  the  philosophic, 
scientific  and  witty  mind  of  France  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  Christian  religion.  The  Church  stand- 
ing thus — a  defeature  on  the  age,  an  offence  to  its 
intelligence  and  conscience,  a  foe  to  liberty  and  pro- 
gi-ess,  was  of  course  abandoned  of  the  French  mind. 
It  turned  from  it  in  loathing  and  contempt.  Alas  it 
derided  and  cursed  Christianity  itself  And  we  can 
hardly  wonder,  if  this  w^as  all  the  Christianity  it 
knew.  And  such  it  was  to  the  millions  of  France. 
Indeed  even  Yoltaire  was  profoundly  ignorant  of  the 
Scriptures  and  the  Faith  against  which  he  directed 
the  sneer  of  all  Europe.  So  were  many  of  his  fol- 
lowers. 

Morell  gives  very  truly  the  process  of  French  in- 
fidelity, and  fitly  defines  it  when  he  calls  it  the  '•  In- 
fidelity of  ignorance." 

But  though  ignorant  of  Christianity  and  the  Bible, 
the  French  literati  were  learned  in  science,  and  acute 
and  comprehensive  in  philosophic  analysis ;  and  they 

9* 


202  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

could  feel  and  show  the  discrepancies  of  science  with 
the  teachings  of  the  Church.  So  here  again  spiri- 
tual despotism  begat  unbelief;  not  only  by  errors 
and  falsities  into  which  all  may  fall,  but  by  the  fact 
that  she  could  never  retract  or  rej^ent.  Every  absur- 
dity was  eternized  by  her  infallibility.  Thus  she 
was  compelled  to  array  science  against  Christianity. 
In  Protestant  countries  spiritual  despotism  escaped 
this  consequence,  because  of  its  logical  inconsistency. 
It  abjured  all  claim  to  the  infallibility  that  should 
accompany  a  vicegerency  of  Heaven ;  while  at  the 
same  time,  it  arrogated  the  power  and  authority 
attaching  only  to  such  infallibility.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, it  was  more  tyrannous,  but  at  the  same  time  less 
mischievous,  in  the  Protestant  than  the  Pomish 
communion,  because  of  its  illogicalness.  The  former 
may  repent — the  latter,  a  terrible  consistency  petri- 
fies to  the  derision  and  execration  of  all  the  future. 
This  her  impeccableness,  binding  her  to  not  only 
the  defence  of,  but  to  persistency  in  all  the  past,  in 
the  presence  of  the  French  mind  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  must  have  been  a  fearful  generator  of  unbe- 
lief and  irreligion. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  203 


CHAPTER    Ylil. 
FPtAXCE. 

French  Literature  of  the  18th  century — Infidel  Writers  and  Savans 
— Mission  of  Infidelity  organized — Its  Apostles  and  Evangelists, 
Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  the  Encyclopedists — Their  Quarry,  the 
French  church — Its  Corruption,  Ignorance,  Superstitions  and 
Cruelties — Jesuitism — Its  Expose  and  Fall — Money-madness  in 
France — The  Primal  Fountain  of  her  Infidelity — Politico-Ecclesi- 
astical Despotism. 

It  -^^as  again  tlie  application  of  spiritual  despotism 
to  tlie  French  mind,  such  as  we  have  above  described 
that  produced  the  portentous  birth  of  the  Fkench 
LiTEEATUEE  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  a  birth  as 
strangely  mighty  and  wicked  as  those  from  the  mis- 
alliance of  the  sons  of  God  with  the  daughters  of 
men,  in  the  early  world;  giants  in  power  and 
in  impiety. 

We  note  then  France  as  especially  an  elaborator 
of  infidelity  through  her  literature,  which  literature 
was  her  protest  against  spiritual  despotism. 

Most  terrible  amid  its  legion  of  mischief,  was  that 
infernal  birth  which  despotism  had  begotten  on  the 
French  mind;  at  first,  in  driving  that  mind,  as  we 


204  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

have  before  noticed,  from  all  qnestions  of  Cliurch  or 
State,  and  existing  institutions,  under  tlie  wand  of 
this  despotism.  The  policy  of  iron  absolute  repres- 
sion in  these  directions,  was  attemjDted  on  a  national 
mind  the  most  stimulated,  active,  and  in  many  walks, 
the  furthest  advanced  in  Europe.  It  could  not  fail 
to  produce  strange  and  portentous  results.  Obstruc- 
ted in  its  old  paths,  it  was  impelled  the  more  fiercely 
into  tortuous  and  erratic  ones.  Divorced  from  the 
healthful  restraints  of  the  present  and  the  actual,  it 
plunged  with  boundless  extravagance  into  the  realms 
of  the  speculative  and  ideal.  It  avenged  its  tyran- 
nous exclusion  from  certain  fields,  by  frantic  license  in 
those  left  open.  It  might  not  touch  directly  faiths 
and  institutions.  It  mined  under  all.  Priest  and 
king  were  prescribed  to  it;  It  rushed  the  more 
madly  on  the  primal  truths  of  philosophy,  morality, 
religion  and  government ;  and  wreaked  its  resent- 
ment for  the  cruelties,  absurdities,  the  bloody  and 
drivelling  superstitions,  enforced  by  the  double 
tyranny  above,  by,  first  a  covert  doubt,  and,  finally, 
a  frantic  rage  against  Christianity  and  God  himself. 
The  Church  had  sown  the  wind,  and  she  was  to  reap 
the  whirlwind.  The  wrongs  of  ecclesiastic  power 
arrogating  to  be  Christianity  in  the  previous  cen- 
turies, its  puerilities  and  mummeries,  its  outrages  on 
common  reason  and  conscience,  were  to  bear  their 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  205 

bitterest  fruit  in  the  eigliteentli  century  ;  first  in  the 
literature  of  France,  then  the  commanding  one  of 
the  world ;  at  last,  the  sown  dragon's  teeth  were  to 
spring  np  as  armed  men.  The  mind  of  France  mis- 
taking Romanism  for  Christianity,  rose  against 
religion  in  strange  ferocity.  The  most  brilliant 
genius  of  France  was  combined  and  organized  in 
this  dreadful  warfare.  Tlie  Abb6  Eaynal  contributed 
the  charms  of  historic  eloquence  and  painting,  cari- 
caturing priests  and  Christianity,  and  embellishing 
a  seductive  naturalism  ;  D'Alembert  threw  into  the 
cause  the  genius  whose  wondrous,  clear-eyed,  com- 
prehensive vision,  had  traced  the  mysteries  of  the 
modern  analysis;  the  prodigious  and  varied  erudi- 
tion, and  graceful  taste  of  Helvetius,  Diderot,  and 
their  compeers,  argued,  embellished  and  insinuated 
the  most  frightful  irreligion,  and  most  revolting 
sensualism.  The  novels  of  Crebillon,  and  Le  Clos, 
Louvet's  memoirs  and  innumerable  madrigals,  with 
appliances,  to  the  public  mind,  of  licentious  adven- 
tures, voluptuous  paintings,  erotic  sonnets,  and  undis- 
guised obscenities,  labored  in  the  same  evil  gospel  of 
materialism.  "  Such  was  the  influence  of  writers  of 
this  school,"  says  Alison,  "  that  almost  the  whole 
philosophical  and  literary  writings  of  France  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  before  the  Eevolution,  were 
infidel.    When  David  Hume  was  invited  to  meet  a 


206  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

party  of  eighteen  of  the  most  literary  men  in  the 
French  capital,  he  found  to  his  astonishment  that  he 
was  the  least  skeptical  of  the  party.  He  was  the 
only  one  present  who  admitted  even  the  probable 
evidence  of  the  Supreme  Eeing."  If  such  was  the 
religious  eclipse  in  the  realm  of  literature,  we  shall 
hardly  wonder  that  the  darkness  spread  over  all  the 
land. 

Thus  the  curse  of  despotism,  combining  such  terri- 
ble repression  with  so  much  life,  necessitated  this 
erratic,  infidel,  and  finally  anarchical  career  of  mind. 
That  literature  that,  amid  the  peacock  pageant  and 
hollow  prudery  of  the  model  desj)otism  of  Europe — 
that  of  Louis  XIY. — displays  itself  on  that  "extra- 
ordinary Parnassus  where,"  according  to  Menzel, 
"  Apollo  in  the  pedantic  bagwig,  led  witli  his  fiddle 
the  concert  of  frizzed  and  powdered  muses,  disguised 
in  bodices  with  hoop-petticoats,"  and  where  "of  the 
ancient  motto  of  French  chivalry — God,  the  king, 
honor  and  the  ladies — only  God  and  honor  were  left 
out" — that  literature  we  do  not  wonder  at  seeing 
throw  off  those  hollow  i3roj)rieties  and  hyjDocritic 
pruderies  as  soon  as  the  model  despot  was  cold  in 
his  grave,  and  ministering  in  utter  shamelessness  in 
the  Circean  revel  of  the  Kegent.  Nor  are  we  sur- 
prised at  finding  that  having  passed  from  prudery  to 
revel,  it  now  passed  from  revel  to  rage ;  and  in  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. IN    FRANCE.  207 

Molocli  orgies  of  revolution,  appeared  a  genius  of 
ruin;  scattering  phrenzy  and  flame  through  cathe- 
dral and  palace,  where  ages  before  it  exhibited  its 
servile  and  hollow  mummeries.  The  change  from 
the  prude  and  hypocrite  to  the  wanton  and  blas- 
phemer, was  a  necessity  of  literature  under  such  a 
despotism  applied  to  such  a  national  mind. 

'Nov  can  we  wonder  that  infidelity  Irectking  forth 
as  a  pestilence  fron  France  as  its  central  focus  over- 
spread Europe;  especially,  when  w^e  remember  how 
in  her,  infidelity  became  organized  as  a  7n{ssion,  and 
who  were  the  great  apostles,  and  who  the  evangelists 
of  that  mission ! 

Probably  the  earth  never  saw  a  more  powerful  or 
brilliant  combination  of  intellects,  nor  one  united  in 
a  more  portentous  project,  than  those  who  in  the 
eighteenth  century  conspired  for  the  overthrow  of 
Christianity.  They  labored  in  their  terrible  work 
with  the  splendor  and  passion,  the  genius  and  hate 
of  a  cohort  of  fallen  angels.  Paris  was  the  origin 
and  centre  of  this  conspiracy ;  France  its  first 
theatre.  But  from  Paris  its  meshes  spread  through 
Europe. 

The  chief  of  this  conspiracy,  Yoltaiee,  was  one  of 
those  wondrously  gifted  men  that  seem  sent  of 
Heaven,  now  in  mercy,  and  now  for  punishment, 
among  mankind.     His  genius  quick,  acute,  vigorous, 


208  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

subtle  and  infinitely  versatile,  was  armed  with  a 
sense  of  tlie  ridiculous  that,  eager  as  the  lightning, 
flashed  on  its  quarry  in  all  things ;  his  wit  nimble 
and  glittering  as  that  flash,  and  as  terrible.  By  the 
terror  of  his  sneer  he  was  a  potentate  in  Europe. 
His  epigrams  pursued  the  prince  to  the  recesses  of 
his  palace,  and  smote  the  general  at  the  head  of  his 
armies,  and  beauty  in  her  pride  of  triumph.  His 
sarcasm  hissed  above  the  revel  of  saloons  or  the 
clangor  of  arms.  ''His  mockery  was  perhaps  the 
most  terrible  intellectual  weapon  ever  wielded  by 
man.  Bigots  and  tyrants,"  says  Macaulay,  "  who 
had  never  been  moved  by  the  wailing  and  cursing 
of  mill-ions,  turned  pale  at  his  name.  Principles 
unassailable  by  reason — principles  that  had  with- 
stood the  flercest  attacks  of  power,  the  most  valuable 
truths,  the  most  generous  sentiments,  the  noblest  and 
most  graceful  images,  the  purest  reputations,  the 
most  august  institutions,  began  to  look  mean  and 
loathsome,  soon  as  that  withering  smile  was  turned 
upon  them." 

He  appeared  as  it  were  the  Mephistophiles  of  flc- 
tion,  moving  amid  the  shams,  corruptions,  fooleries 
and  hypocrisies  of  France  and  Europe  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  In  truth  his  genius  was  Satanic  in 
its  hardness  and  meanness,  as  in  its  brilliancy ;  with- 
out true  sympathy  with  goodness  or  greatness.     That 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  209 

terrible  mind  was  the  slave  of  puerile  superstitions 
and  petty  passions,  envions,  malignant  and  egotisti- 
cal. 'Not  simply  an  unbeliever,  liis  hatred  to  Chris- 
tianity was  diabolic,  inexplicable  except  on  the 
ground  of  a  strange  ignorance  of  Christianity,  and 
a  view  of  the  deformed  caricature  presented  in  its 
name.  His  eye  seems  to  have  been  blinded  to  all 
but  abuses  of  things.  He  seemed  to  war  on  all  that 
for  good  or  evil  had  authority.  He  built  no  system, 
left  no  doctrine.  "iTo  human  teacher  ever  left 
behind  him  such  a  wreck  of  truths  and  falsehoods." 
From  beautiful  Lake  Leman  he  falmined  over 
Europe  a  mere  genius  of  ruin ;  like  Milton's  arch- 
angel hurling  the  wrecks  of  the  world  against  its 
author. 

Close  beside  him  in  bad  eminence — co-worker  of 
ruin,  history  places  Eousseau ;  similar  in  w^ondrous 
intellectual  endowment,  and  united  in  the  same  evil 
aim ;  yet  most  unlike  in  genius.  While  Yoltaire 
sneered  away  the  faith  of  Europe,  he  corrupted  it 
through  the  sensibilities.  Its  moral  sense  was  relax- 
ed under  the  fascination  of  his  sentiment;  its  faith 
and  virtue  were  dissolved  in  a  paroxysm  of  tears. 
He  tangled  the  mind  of  Europe  with  soft  subtleties, 
dazzled  it  with  shining  sophisms,  and  intoxicated  it 
with  false  but  delicious  dreams ;  could  make  Europe 
weep  in  sympathy  with  his  romance  of  exquisite  and 


•0 

210  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

heroic  pathos,  and  admire  the  eloquence  of  his  won- 
derful eulogy  on  Jesus  Christ,  and  then  could  expose 
his  illegitimate  children  at  the  doors  of  foundling 
hospitals. 

The  Encyclopedists  who  followed  in  their  train, 
carried  out  to  their  results,  and  distributed  through- 
out all  the  domain  of  science,  the  principles  and 
sentiments  of  these  master  magicians.  In  the  latter 
part  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XY.,  they  openly  aspired 
to  effect  a  revolution  in  almost  all  subjects  of  hu- 
man thought ;  to  remold  the  world,  its  institutions, 
opinions  and  habits.  The  problem  was  to  recon- 
struct the  world  and  leave  God  out  of  it.  The  Ency- 
clopedia— first  of  the  name — is  the  monument  of 
their  combination — a  work  of  vast  service  to  philoso- 
phy, science,  legislation  and  social  progress ;  plead- 
ing for  liberty  against  tyrannies  and  abuses  of  all 
kinds,  but  bitter  with  hate  against  Christianity  belied 
in  their  presence  by  its  professed  representative. 
To  this  warfare  on  Christianity  were  marshalled  the 
most  brilliant  writers  of  France  or  of  Europe  of  that 
period.  And  what  a  quarry  was  revealed  before 
them  in  a  Church  fatally  conserving  the  fatuities  and 
superstitions  of  twilight  and  spectral  centuries. 

For  again  we  have  to  note  spiritual  despotism  as 
the  parent  of  infidelity  through  the  superstition  it 
produced.    Superstition,  or  the  irrational  fear  of  the 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  211 

spiritual  and  unseen,  naturally  appears  when  the 
reason  is  dethroned  or  abandoned  in  the  spiritual 
realm.  But  spiritual  despotism  in  commanding 
belief  without  investigation,  and  in  forbidding  the 
right  of  private  judgment,  effects  this  dethronement 
and  abandonment.  Once  allow  a  separation  of 
faith  from  evidence,  and  you  have  made  a  breach  in 
the  enclosures  of  my  creed  wide  enough  to  let  in  all 
the  brood  of  old  night  and  unreason ;  ghosts,  goblins, 
ghouls,  omens,  auguries,  portents,  miracles,  witch- 
crafts, visions  beatific  or  infernal,  talismanic  myste- 
ries, fatuities  fantastic  or  satanic,  without  number, 
come  trooping  in,  through  the  breach  in  my  reason 
made  by  the  intromission  of  wandering  chapels,  and 
transubstantiated  bread  and  wine,  and  the  thauma- 
turgic  virtues  of  saintly  rags  and  hair  and  apostolic 
blood  and  bones. 

Spiritual  despotism  commonly  enforces  by  direct 
command  the  reception  of  many  superstitions ;  more 
it  brings  on,  by  the  habit  of  mind  it  induces.  In 
proof  of  the  above  statement,  we  have  only  to  glance 
at  the  countries  and  ages  of  spiritual  desj^otism. 
Tliey  are  all  overcast  with  phantasm  and  fear.  But 
what  produces  superstition,  produces  infidelity. 
Their  realms  border  on  each  other,  there  is 
but  a  step  between,  and  the  intercourse  is  con- 
stant.     The  illogical  reception    of  a   dogma   pre- 


212  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

pares  the  way  for  its  illogical  rejection.  If  religion 
may  enter  without  evidence,  so  may  irreligion.  As 
I  superstitiously,  that  is,  illogically,  accept  Christian- 
ity to-day,  so  may  I  with  the  same  illogical  habit 
admit  Atheism  to-morrow.  Having  in  entering  the 
realm  of  superstitious  belief,  renounced  the  light  and 
guidance  of  my  own  reason,  I  am  on  an  open,  waste, 
dark  sea,  and  know  not  on  what  shore  I  may  land. 
The  consciousness  of  having  received  a  creed  super- 
stitiously will  always  prepare  the  mind  to  cast  it 
away  when  caprice  or  interest  prompt. 

Thus  superstition  breaks  down  the  barriers  of 
rational  belief  in  the  mind.  It  destroys  the  logical 
law  and  order  in  the  processes  of  the  understanding ; 
and  the  intellect  becomes  in  consequence  incapable 
of  consistency  or  stability  in  its  beliefs  or  unbeliefs. 
Consequently  it  fluctuates  endlessly  between  childish 
credulity  and  absolute  and  universal  unbelief. 

Of  this  affinity  or  proximity  between  superstition 
and  infidelity,  many  of  the  free-thinkers  of  the  French 
school  of  the  last  century,  and  especially  their  great 
leader,  Yoltaire,  exhibit  striking  instances.  The  men 
audacious  as  the  rebel  angels  against  the  true  God, 
cowered  at  a  shadow.  The  Marquis  D'Argens,  one 
of  the  philosophers  and  courtiers  of  Frederick  II., 
Macaulay  describes  as  "  hating  Christianity  with  a 
rancor  that  made  him  incapable  of  rational  inquiry, 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  213 

and  at  the  same  time  the  slave  of  dreams  and  omens, 
refusing  to  sit  down  to  table  with  thirteen  in  com- 
pany, turning  pale  if  the  salt  fell  toward  himself, 
begging  his  guests  not  to  cross  their  knives  and  forks 
on  their  plates,  and  never  for  the  world  commencing 
a  journey  on  Saturday."  The  Marquis  D'Argens  is 
only  a  specimen  of  a  class,  a  type  of  the  workings  of 
a  great  permanent  law  of  mind.  According  to  this 
law,  we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  an  era  of  skep- 
ticism bordering  on  that  of  superstition,  or  each 
becoming  either,  in  communities  or  in  the  single 
mind.  Still  less  shall  we  be  surprised  at  such  com- 
mingling, if  we  consider  what  effect  the  spectacle  of 
superstitions  enforced  and  warranted  by  the  Church, 
and  servilely  received  by  spiritual  slaves,  must  have 
had  on  the  classes  not  thus  receiving  them — what 
contempt,  what  an  indignation  of  unbelief  such  a 
spectacle  must  have  provoked. 

On  the  whole  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  more  ter- 
rible fountain  of  unbelief  than  that  hideous  or  ludi- 
crous caricature^  which  the  church  of  France,  under 
the  auspices  of  spiritual  despotism,  was  compelled  to 
mahe  of  Christianity  'before  the  French  nnind  and 
French  literati  of  the  eighteenth  century!  A  reli- 
gion of  intellectual  imbecility,  ignorance  and  super- 
stition, united  with  bigotry  and  arrogance,  opposing 
itself  to  the  enlightenment,  the  reason  and  philosophy 


214  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

of  tlie  age !  A  Cliurcli  of  foul  and  bloody  history, 
ulcerous  with  lusts  and  corruptions,  and  venomous 
with  fanaticism,  affronting  the  moral  sense  of  man- 
kind and  the  sentiment  of  natural  religion  with  the 
cruelties  and  absurdities  of  barbarous  ages!  what 
could  be  a  richer  quarry  for  the  infidel  wits  and 
philosophers  of  that  period  than  a  church  anathema- 
tizing the  Baconian  philosophy,  warring  on  natural 
reason  and  the  right  of  private  judgment  and  execra- 
ting science !  teaching  transubstantiation,  but  ignor- 
ing Newton  and  La  Place  !  and  replying  to  all 
doubts  and  opposing  utterances  by  acts  of  force  and 
the  brute  thunder  of  ecclesiastic  anathema,  now  con- 
temptible from  impotency,  and  imported  from  dead 
and  barbarous  eras !  a  Church  which  answered  geo- 
metric demonstration  or  metaphysical  argument  with 
sentence  of  excommunication,  or  settled  questions  on 
natural  history  by  scholastic  formulary  and  pontific 
decretals!  Could  anything  more  surely  tend  to 
skepticism  than  thus  arraying  science  against  Chris- 
tianity, nature  against  God,  and  human  reason 
against  revelation,  which  after  all,  reason  must 
receive,  if  received  at  all  ?  What  could  more  cer- 
tainly produce  a  sneering  unbelief,  than  the  Church 
assuming  such  a  position  in  the  presence  of  the  ency- 
clopedists and  free-thinkers  ?  A  Church  offending 
our  natural  sen^e  of  divine  equity  by  unreasonable- 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  215 

ness  in  tlie  terms  andjiieans  of  God's  favor — securing 
Heaven  with  no  purity  of  life  through  mummeries 
and  forms  and  spiritual  legerdemain ;  that  attached 
salvation  to  rosaries  and  hair  shirts !  a  Church 
which,  speaking  through  her  great  Italian  poet, 
freights  the  first  circle  of  hell  with  "sighs  which 
made  the  eternal  air  tremble," 

From  grief  felt  by  multitudes  many  and  vast, 
Of  men,  women  and  infants  that  of  sm 
Were  g^dltless,  hut  for  sole  defect  of  baptism 
Were  lost ! 

Could  such  a  Church  be  aught  to  them  but  an 
object  of  incredulous  contempt?  And  when  that 
Church  broke  a  man  on  the  wheel  at  Toulouse,  or 
tortured  and  beheaded  a  youth  for  mere  indiscretion 
at  Abbeville,  in  the  noon  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
could  it  be  otherwise  than  that  contempt  should 
deepen  to  execration  and  abhorrence  ? 

When  moreover  that  Chm'ch  came  before  such  a 
tribunal  as  a  miTacle-monger^  a  thaumaturgist  retail- 
ing monkish  legends  of  winking  statues  and  bleeding 
fountains  and  crucifixes  fallen  from  Heaven,  and 
exploits  of  saintly  chivalry  rivalling  in  probability 
and  intellectual  reach,  if  not  in  taste  and  interest, 
the  w^onderful  stories  of  Jack  the  Giant  Killer ;  tales 
of  St.  George  and  the  Dragon,  or  St.  Patrick  and  the 


216  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Serpents,  or  St.  Antliony  with  fiends  fonl  and  fair, 
can  we  wonder  tliat  tlie  world  laughed  outright  ? 

But  when  lower  still,  that  Church  came  before 
them  as  a  chapman  of  charms  and  relics,  showman 
of  dry  bones  and  old  clothes,  saints'  tears  and  blood, 
feathers  of  the  arch-angel  Gabriel,  holy  coats  of 
Christ  made  to  pontific  order,  the  hair  and  milk  of 
the  Yirgin,  with  veils,  girdles,  gowns  and  other  ward- 
robe enough  to  set  up  a  haberdasher ;  heads  of  John 
the  Baptist,  with  teeth  of  Peter  and  Paul,  and  apos- 
tolic legs  and  arms,  sufficient  to  furnish  an  anatomi- 
cal museum ;  and  of  wood  and  nails  of  the  holy  cross 
exhaustless  in  supply,  can  we  be  surprised  that  at  the 
spectacle  of  a  Church  staggering  down  the  eigh- 
teenth century  under  the  burden  of  such  a  curiosity 
shop — a  shout  of  derision  went  up  from  the  philoso- 
phic corps,  till  Europe  in  sympathy  shook  its  sides 
from  Petersburg  to  the  Sicilian  Straits  ?  "We  must 
recollect  that  by  the  fatal  necessity  of  her  infallibi- 
lity, that  Church  could  renounce  nothing,  repent 
nothing,  amend  nothing.  With  all  the  trumpery 
and  pretension,  and  absurdity  of  the  past  cumbered 
and  bedizzened,  not  a  shred  bleached,  or  a  stain 
removed  from  her  robes  that  had  trailed  through  the 
foulness  and  bloodshed  of  a  thousand  years,  she  was 
pinioned  and  pilloried  to  the  derision  of  all  time. 
Patal  was  the  hour  for  Rome  when  she  put  forth  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  217 

claim  to  be  the  Infallible.  The  infallible  is  the 
immutable. 

All  retreat  was  closed  up.  Each  step  in  her  usur- 
pation was  upon  the  round  of  a  ladder  that  broke  as 
she  rose.  There  is  for  her  no  descent  but  in  a  fall 
that  must  dash  her  in  pieces.  Still,  descend  she 
must.  It  were  terrible  for  any  institution  to  be  com- 
pelled to  go  down  all  the  future  bearing  the  burden 
of  all  the  past.  It  would  crush  it  as  under  the  pres- 
sure of  fate.  How  then  could  the  Gallic  church  go 
down  through  the  searching  and  fiery  ordeal  of  the 
eighteenth  century  without  being  burned  up.  But 
this  Church  was  to  the  French  nation  at  large,  and 
to  the  peoples  of  central  and  southern  Europe,  yea 
even  to  the  philosophers,  their  all  of  Christianity. 
They  hardly  knew  any  other.  With  such  a  repre- 
sentative of  Christianity,  encountering  such  a  literary 
cohort  as  the  philosophers  and  the  encyclopedists,  is 
it  strange  that  in  the  heart  of  the  French  nation 
there  sprang  up  a  pest  of  unbelief  destined  to  waste 
the  world  ? 

There  seemed  to  be  wanting,  in  order  to  complete 
the  odiousness.  and  defencelessness  of  the  French 
church,  only  the  historical  and  logical  expose^  and 
thefall^  during  the  period,  of  the  Order  of  Jesus  ; 
the  latter  stripping  her  of  her  most  powerful  defen- 
ders, after  the  former  had  drawn  on  her  the  hatred 

10 


218  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

of  mankind  for  crimes  even  beyond  her  own  guilt 
and  turpitude.  Indeed  through  the  creation  and 
employment  of  this  order  as  its  instrument  and 
champion,  spiritual  despotism  may  be  rightly  ar- 
raigned as  being  to  a  fearful  extent  the  guilty  cause 
of  the  revolt  of  the  human  mind  from  Christianity 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  Jesuitism,  as  far  as  it 
stands  before  mankind  as  the  representative  and 
champion  of  Christianity,  must  evidently  have 
brought  on  our  religion  odium  and  incredulity,  by 
its  utter  immorality  in  theory,  policy  and  practice, 
whenever  its  creed  and  conduct  became  known. 
"No  institution  known  to  history  has  been  more  dar- 
ingly, more  corruptingly  or  more  impiously  immoral ; 
its  creed,  a  gospel  of  deceit ;  its  principia  a  novum 
organum  of  craft — ^the  dialectic  of  fraud ;  its  chief 
virtue  and  piety,  submission  absolute  to  spiritual 
despotism.  In  its  jDolicy  and  conduct,  it  scrupled  in 
compassing  its  ends  no  shape,  garb  or  hue,  no  art, 
no  measure.  It  wore  the  livery  of  all  schools ; 
humored  all  caprices,  moods,  temperaments,  opinions 
and  passions ;  passed  from  virtue  to  vice  and  from 
heroism  to  meanness  with  most  absolute  indiffer- 
ency  ;  made  the  end  sanctify  all  means  and  canonize 
all  crimes.  Its  protean  facility  of  change  and  flexi- 
bility of  principle  was  portentous.  It  could  cabal  in 
the  name  of  all  creeds,  political  and  social ;  could 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  219 

personate  all  cliaracters ;  could  enact  the  absolutist 
or  the  servile  ;  the  anchorite  or  the  courtier  and  gal- 
lant ;  the  lewd  and  blasphemous  wit,  .or  the  austere 
devotee  and  rapt  enthusiast.  Democrat,  aristocrat 
and  monarchist.;  the  instrument,  ally,  slave  of  des- 
potism or  the  red  republican ;  a  sower  of  rumors, 
conspirator  against  monarchy,  and  assassin  of  kings 
— in  all  these  parts  and  persons,  with  equal  facility 
to  suit  place,  and  time,  and  circle,  and  country,  it 
passed  before  the  eyes  of  men. 

Of  course  such  an  utter  recklessness  of  principle, 
assuming  the  championship  of  Christianity,  and 
sanctioned  and  canonized  by  the  power  claiming  to 
be  its  infallible  and  Heaven-appointed  hierophant 
on  earth — such  a  recklessness  and  profligacy  of 
principle,  we  say,  thus  assuming  and  thus  sanctioned 
in  the  name  of  Religion,  must — as  far  as  those  as- 
sumptions and  sanctions  are  admitted — destroy  either 
the  religious  faith  or  the  moral  sense  of  mankind. 
Eeligion  thus  presented  shocks  the  natural  conscience. 
The  former  cannot  find  place  in  fhe  human  bosom 
till  it  has  expelled  the  latter. 

Such  is  ever  the  curse  of  spiritual  despotism. 
Through  the  instruments  it  is  compelled  to  employ,  it 
is  necessitated  to  smite  nations  with  a  moral  plague 
or  with  infidelity  ;  fills  them  with  moral  banditti  or 
spiritual  slaves  ;  and  establishes  its  throne  only  over 


220  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

the  sepulchre  of  the  conscience  or  the  smothered 
crater  of  volcanic  unbelief.  An  instrument  necessi- 
tating such  consequences  to  the  French  church  and 
the  Eomish  world,  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  was  Jesuitism.  And  its  mischiefs  were 
likely  to  be  extensive  and  terrible  in  p^oportiori  to 
the  extent  of  its  sjpliere  and  its  jpower.  But  in  the 
ages  previous,  the  Order  of  Jesus  had  possessed  it- 
self of  all  the  strongholds  which  command  the  public 
mind.  The  pidpit,  press,  confessional  and  inquisi- 
tion, and  the  academy  and  university  through 
Catholic  Europe,  belonged  to  it.  Cabinet  and 
Cathedral  w^ere  extensively  occupied  by  it.  Litera- 
ture and  science  were  its  creatures  or  its  wards.  In 
colonial  adventure  and  missions,  in  politics,  in 
finance,  wars,  treaties,  tariffs,  trade  and  manufactures ; 
in  short,  in  almost  every  interest  of  society  the 
Jesuit  figured.  In  Austria  he  was  confessor  and 
master  of  the  bigot  Ferdinand  II.,  and  abettor  of  the 
thirty  years'  w^ar ;  in  France  the  assassin  of  Henry 
lY.,  keeper  of  conscience  to  Charles  IX.  and 
Louis  XI Y.,  instigator  of  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartho- 
lomew and  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  iNantes  ;  in 
Spain  he  was  the  evil  genius  of  Phillip  II.  ;  in 
Holland  the  murderer  of  the  Duke  of  Orange  ;  in 
England  the  complotter  of  midnight  cabal,  and 
regicide  conspiracy.     The  meshes  of  the  policy  of 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  221 

the  order  were  all  over  Europe,  and  in  distant  con- 
tinents. Throngli  its  subtle,  quick  and  all-pervading 
system  of  intelligence,  it  had  a  constant,  universal, 
instantaneous  consciousness  of  the  world.  Through 
its  centralized  administration,  its  absolute  autocracy 
and  its  mechanic  obedience,  it  moniently  penetrated 
with  one  adamantine,  remorseless,  ruthless  will  its 
vast  domain  from  Central  Europe  to  China  and 
California.  Its  ear  and  whisper,  its  eye  and  hand 
were  everywhere;  everywhere,  its  intrigue  and 
police,  its  poison  and  stiletto.  It  was  to  Christendom 
a  terrible  power ;  but  one  which,  like  the  old  man  of 
the  sea,  could  not  be  shaken  off.  Odious  everywhere 
through  its  cabal  and  its  crimes,  feared  everywhere 
because  of  its  vast,  insidious,  unprincipled  ambition 
and  influence,  aspiring  to  grasp  all  interests  from 
fashion  to  finance,  proscribed  at  times,  in  disgust 
and  exhaustion  of  endurance,  from  almost  every 
court  and  country  in  Europe — it  had  again  been  re- 
called as  the  necessary  instrument  of  the  papal  and 
royal  despotism  of  the  period  we  treat  of.  At  length 
in  its  feud  with  the  Jansenists,  it  committed  the 
offence  impardonable  in  Parisian  eyes,  of  showing 
itself  ridiculous  as  well  as  tyrannical  and  unprinci- 
pled. Through  his  inimitable  provincial  letters, 
Pascal  made  France  and  all  Europe  laugh  at  it. 
The  order,  too  mighty  for  popes  and  potentates,  was 


222  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

impaled  on  his  satire.  Finally,  when  its  seals  of 
secrecy  were  broken  by  a  judicial  procedure  and 
its  books  by  compulsory  process  were  brought  before 
the  legal  tribunal,  in  a  trial  where  the  Jesuits  as  a 
mercantile  company  were  a  party,  the  exposure  of 
its  esoteric  creed  and  rules  of  practice  drew  on  it  the 
abhorrence  of  Christendom.  The  moral  legerdemain 
therein  displayed,  the  subtle  glazing  of  sin,  the 
saturnine  coolness  of  its  atrocious  sophisms,  the  im- 
pudent naivet6  of  its  infernal  dialectic,  divided 
Christendom  between  a  shudder  and  sneer.  Jesuit- 
ism shrank  before  the  temj^est  of  odium  and  ridicule 
aroused  against  it,  and  for  a  time  disappears  before 
the  indignation  of  mankind.  But  as  by  its  policy 
and  achievement  in  behalf  of  spiritual  despotism,  it 
had  shaken  the  faith  of  nations  in  Christianity ;  so  now 
by  its  fall  stripping  spiritual  despotism  of  its  right 
arm  of  spiritual  fraud,  and  bereaving  it  of  its  most 
efficient  defenders,  it  broke  the  strength  of  that 
tyranny  which  had  essayed  thus  far  to  extort  a 
nominal  confession  of  Christianity  from  the  ghastly 
and  anguish-wreathed  lips  of  crushed  nations.  Its 
fall  broke  the  seals  of  the  pit  its  triumph  had 
peopled.  The  agency  of  the  Jesuits  as  nominal 
champions  of  Christianity,  associating  it  with  their 
infamies,  was  undoubtedly  one  reason  for  that  fierce 
rage  with  which  the  nations   came  to  regard  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  223 

religion  of  Christ.  The  recoil  of  an  agency  so  utterly 
un]3rincipled  and  profligate,  when  exposed,  must  have 
been  terrible  against  the  power  that  employed  it,  i.  e. 
against  the  Romish  church ;  and  in  the  nations  where 
she  alone  represented  Christianity,  against  religion 
itself.  The  shock  to  faith  must  have  been  the  more 
fatal,  the  more  intimately  and  pervasively  Jesuitism 
had  intertwined  itself  with  the  political  and  social 
order  of  the  world,  and  had  poisoned  its  moral  life. 
So  wide-spread  was  the  cancerous  growth,  that  we 
need  not  wonder  its  attempted  eradication  almost 
cost  the  spiritual  life  of  Christendom. 

"We  may  not  close  this  view  of  the  rise  of  infidelity 
in  France,  and  its  diffusion  from  her  through  the 
rest  of  Europe,  without  adding  to  all  the  above 
causes,  tending  to  make  her  during  the  eighteenth 
century  the  hot-bed  of  unbelief,  the  uivparalleled  jpy^e- 
valence  there  of  the  money  madness  of  the  era.  In 
France  was  its  especial  focus,  or  at  least,  owing  to 
peculiar  qualities  of  the  French  character,  it  had  like 
almost  all  the  passions  of  modern  civilization,  its 
acme  of  fever  at  Paris.  The  illusions,  frauds,  cor- 
ruptions and  crimes  attendant  upon  it,  there  were 
stupendous.  Like  all  the  vices  and  follies  of  the 
French  character,  it  seems  to  have  come  to  its  height 
under  the  infamous  Eegent  of  Orleans.  ]^or  can  we 
wonder  that  the  national  mind  already  alien  or  indif- 


224  CAUSE    OF   INFIDELITY. 

ferent  to  religion,  from  many  causes,  should  have 
been  well-nigh  borne  clear  away  when  this  storm  of 
Mammonism  beat  upon  it.  The  world  of  faith  faded. 
The  world  of  sight  closed  around  and  snared  them 
in  the  meanest,  most  sordid,  materializing  of  the 
passions.  The  class  of  infidel  economists  which  arose 
and  applied  the  energy  of  brilliant,  sagacious,  god- 
less genins  to  the  science  of  wealth,  fitly  illustrate 
the  spirit  of  the  period.  The  spiritual  power — the 
Church — which  should  have  stayed  the  plague, 
rather  aggravated  it.  She  even  led  the  way,  into 
the  temple  of  Mammon.  The  position  and  history 
of  France  illustrate  the  terrible  mischiefs  which  must 
accrue  when  the  spiritual  power  abandons  its  func- 
tions of  checking  the  material  and  secular  tendencies 
of  modern  civilization. 

But  if  we  attempt  to  trace  the  money  plague  to  its 
source,  we  track  its  malignancy  at  last  to  the  same 
evil  fountain  which  we  have  found  gushing  forth 
with  skej^ticism  in  forms  and  directions  so  manifold 
over  Christendom.  The  ultimate  guilt  of  this  plague 
lies  with  spiritual  despotism.  ]N"ot  that  she  was 
answerable  for  that  stage  of  civilization  and  social 
and  historical  development  that  of  necessity  lifted 
the  idea  of  wealth  to  a  new  prominence  before  the 
mind  of  society.  That  stage  was  inevitable ;  nay 
more,  was  desirable.     It  was  in  the  line  of  social 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  225 

progress.  That  wealth  should  rise  to  a  high  and 
commanding  interest  amid  the  forces  and  objects  of 
society,  was  natural;  was  beneficent.  But  that  it 
should  becoDie  an  ejDidemic  mania,  a  moral  plague, 
corrupting  the  faith  and  life  of  nations,  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  spiritual  despotism  had  broken  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  world,  had  slain  or  enfee- 
bled faith,  exhausted  the  energies  of  the  religious 
sentiment  by  ages  of  agony  and  blood,  and  had  left 
the  world  with  no  conservative  or  recuperative 
power  to  withstand  the  invasions  of  any  epidemic 
moral  disorder.  Otherwise,  like  the  nutriment  that 
in  the  weak  produces  fevers,  while  to  the  strong  it 
gives  strength,  the  money  interest  and  passion  of  the 
era  in  question,  might  have  blent  healthfully  and 
beneficently  with  the  life  and  forces  of  modern 
society. 

Thus  throuo:h  influences  such  as  w^e  have  enume- 
rated,  have  we  seen  France  becoming  amid  the 
nations  of  Europe  the  great  elaborator  and  diffuser 
of  infidelity.  Here  was  its  geographic  centi'e  and 
capital.  Here  its  chief  theatre.  Here  its  mightiest 
tragedy;  its  most  brilliant  and  most  atrocious  ex- 
ploits ;  and  here  its  earth-shaking  catastrophe.  And 
from  hence,  also,  as  from  its  Jerusalem,  the  gospel  of 
unbelief  went  forth  to  dazzle  and  to  darken  nations. 
Such  an  elaborator  and  diffuser,  France  became,  if 

10^- 


226  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

we  seek  its  chief,  primary  and  ultimate  cause,  in 
consequence  of  the  politico-ecclesiastical  desjpotisnh 
wpj^lied  for  centuries  to  the  French  mind — applied 
with  force  not  enough  to  smother,  but  only  to  render 
its  action  within  its  more  confined  space  more 
intense,  passionate  and  explosive;  force  driving  it 
from  affairs  to  the  discussion  and  resolution  of  first 
principles  and  the  achievement  of  results  in  primary 
.  philosophy,  that  like  the  analysis  of  reputed  elemen- 
tary substances  in  chemistry,  seemed  capable  of 
accomplishment  only  under  great  pressure. 

In  a  national  mind  thus  coerced  into  revolutionary 
ways  in  philosophy,  and  emerging,  wearied,  ex- 
hausted and  disgusted  from  generations  of  religious 
wars  into  which  the  same  despotism  had  impelled  it, 
we  have  seen  the  same  evil  cause  again  generating 
infidelity  by  enfeebling  and  corrupting  the  spiritual 
power ;  making  it  incompetent  to  resist  the  invasions 
of  the  money-plague  or  any  moral  epidemic ;  betray- 
ing it  into  enormous  and  suicidal  crimes ;  making  it 
the  slave  or  showman  of  debasing  and  puerile  super- 
stitions ;  associating  witli  it  as  champion  and  instru- 
ment, an  order  the  most  profligate  and  odious  in 
Christendom  ;  and  presenting  it  as  accomplice  of  the 
Yalois  and  the  Bourbons  in  their  unspeakable  sins 
and  shames,  and  their  conspiracies  against  the  liber- 
ties of  the  nation. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    FRANCE.  227 

We  have  seen  tlie  spiritual  power  under  the  coer- 
cion of  spiritual  despotism,  made  to  enact  this  part 
in  French  history  in  the  presence  of  such  an  amphi- 
theatre of  mind  as  the  world  had  never  seen  before , 
so  wdtty  and  so  wicked,  so  unprincipled  and  so  auda- 
cious, so  terrible  in  its  sneer,  so  keen  in  its  sense  of 
the  ridiculous,  so  brilliant  and  rapid  in  its  apprehen- 
sion, so  daring  and  irreverent  in  its  analysis. 

We  have  seen  this  amphitheatre  of  the  French 
mind  in  view  of  such  a  spectacle  of  ecclesiastic  his- 
tory passing  before  it,  filling  all  Europe  with  its 
hiss  and  derision,  and  ultimately  organizing  the 
erudition,  science,  fancy,  wit  and  eloquence,  most 
eminent  in  Europe,  into  a  conspiracy  against  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  then  we  have  seen  this  moving  forth 
from  Paris  as  a  centre,  with  a  cohort  of  disciples,  con- 
fessors, evangelists  and  apostles,  gifted,  powerful, 
Heaven-defiant  and  Heaven-hating — with  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  new  dispensation  and  the  zeal  of  new  love 
and  new  wrath — towards  the  overthrow  of  the  ''reign 
of  superstition"  the  world  over.  We  find  the  diffu- 
sion of  this  plague  of  skepticism  from  France  over 
Europe  powerfully  aided,  moreover,  by  the  central 
and  commanding  position  of  France  in  European 
Civilization,  presenting  her  monarchy,  court,  litera- 
ture and  manners  as  the  model  and  law  for  Christen- 


228  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

dom,  and  tending  to  make  ideas  wliicli  had  become 
French,  become  "Qltimately  Em-opean. 

Such  in  general  was  the  agency  of  France  in  pro- 
ducing that  eclipse  of  faith  we  are  investigating. 
Through  all  influences  and  causes,  permeating  like 
the  pulse  of  an  evil  heart  the  entire  system,  giving 
virulent  malignant  life  to  all,  we  find  spiritual  des- 
potism. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  229 


CHAPTEE   IX. 

SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM  11  ITALY  kW  SPAIN. 

Italy. — Spiritual  Despotism  a  generator  of  Infidelity  in  Italy  and 
Spain — Italian  History  mutilated  and  stifled — Its  silence  significant 
— Insurrection  of  Mind  indicated  by  the  measures  of  Repression — 
Their  Multitude  and  Atrocity — Censorships — Proscriptions — Cru- 
sades— Massacres — Dominicans —  Franciscans — The  Inquisition — 
Glimpses  of  Infidelity  in  Italian  History  and  Literature — Infidelity 
a  necessity  of  Pontifical  History  applied  to  the  Italian  mind — The 
Troubadour — Dante — Petrarch — Arnold  of  Brescia — Savonarola — 
Infidel  Scholars — Monarchs — Popes — Repressive  measures  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century — Their  utter  mercilessness — Terror — Silence 
— Italy  stifled  but  not  believing. 

Spain. — Orthodoxy  of  Spain — No  Spasm  in  a  Corpse — The  Inquisi- 
tion, the  instrument  of  Spanish  Faith — Its  mystery  and  terror — 
War  on  Books — Index  Expurgatorus  —  Death  struggle  of  the 
Spanish  mind,  1559-1570 — Spanish  Thought,  Literature,  Civiliza- 
tion, Manhood  fall  together — Silence  not  belief— The  Peninsula 
still  seething  with  insurgent  Infidelity — Three  Realms  of  Spiritual 
Despotism  compared. 

CONCLUSION. 

Resume  of  the  Argument — Lessons  for  the  Times — Doom  of  Spirit- 
ual Despotism. 

Before  closing  our  review  of  the  plienomenon 
under  discussion,  in  order  to  the  completeness  of  our 
argument  of  the  question  of  cause  as  between  spirit- 
ual liberty  and  spiritual  despotism,  or  between  Pro- 


230  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

testantism  and  Eomanism,  it  is  requisite  to  fake  a 
'brief  glance  at  those  countries  of  Euro;pe  luhich  might 
seem  to  contradict  our  conclusiojis,  and  at  which 
spiritual  despotism  sometimes  points  as  monuments 
of  her  conservative  power  against  unbelief— Spaust 
and  Italy.  "In  Italy  and  Spain,"  we  are  told,  "  as 
also  in  Austria  and  other  Catholic  countries  of  Europe, 
spiritual  despotism  prevailed.  But  behold  the  exem- 
plary and  submissive  faith  of  Spain.  Why  this? 
and  why  the  quiet  and  steadfastness  of  the  Italian 
mind?  Behold  here  the  triumph  of  the  Catholic 
communion,  the  peace  and  unity  and  endurance  in 
believing,  which  it  ensures!  why,  if  spiritual  despot- 
ism be  the  mother  of  infidelity,  why  did  she  not  pro- 
duce that  ofispring  in  the  two  Peninsulas  as  well  as 
in  France  ?"  To  these  inquiries  we  answer  : 

First,  spiritual  despotism  alone,  without  the  requi- 
site concomitancy,  of  course  will  not  assure  the 
result.  It  is  so  with  all  causes.  Their  environment 
is  an  essential  part  of  them.  Despotism  that  abso- 
lutely stifles  thought  or  expression  will  not  be  likely 
to  breed  a  clamorous  infidelity.  The  dead  will  not 
catch  the  j^lague.  The  malaria  will  breed  no  fever 
in  a  corpse.  Yet  the  plague  is  contagious,  and  the 
malaria  a  poisoner.  Our  reasonings  of  the  efiect  of 
spiritual  despotism,  of  course  imply  a  living  subject. 
"We  expect  not  madness  or  spasm  in  the  slain. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  231 

Secondly,  we  maintain  that  spiritual  despotism  did 
^produce  its  legitimate  consequences  in  those  coicntriesy 
and  if  skepticism  was  not  as  ajpjparent  in  their  history 
as  in  that  of  France,  its  suppression  accomplished 
by  the  means  it  has  been,  is  easily  explicable,  consis- 
tently with  our  main  proposition,  and  has  cost  those 
countries  evils,  compared  with  Avhich  even  the  ram- 
pant infidelity  of  France  were  a  lighter  curse. 

First,  then,  we  charge  that  spiritual  despotism  did 
produce  its  natural  evil  fruit  of  unbelief  in  those 
countries.  In  proof,  look  we  first  at  Italy.  There  it 
produced  it  even  earlier ;  inasmuch  as  society  there 
in  all  its  developments  matured  earlier,  and  Eome  the 
great  capital  and  centre  of  spiritual  despotism,  was 
nearer ;  in  consequence  some  of  its  natural  results 
were  more  immediately  exhibited. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  profound  melancholy  we 
pursue  this  argument  through  Italian  history.  That 
history  is  to  us  ineffably  sad,  not  so  much  because  of 
its  utterances  as  its  silence.  That  it  speaks  so  timidly, 
so  meagrely,  so  brokenly,  on  facts  so  many,  so  patent 
and  so  vast  as  those  embraced  in  the  insurrectionary 
movements  of  the  Italian  mind  against  the  Christian 
faith,  or  at  least  against  the  Church;  its  dumbness, 
or  speaking  below  its  breath  on  topics  of  such  tragic 
and  commanding  interest,  is  among  the  most  affect- 
ing and  instructive  of  the  fticts  it  exliibits.     That  we 


232  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

have  to  catch  at  implication,  allusion,  obscure  hints, 
scattered  and  isolate  events,  sketches,  glimpses,  frag- 
mentary narratives,  for  proof  of  facts  which,  if  xeah 
ought  to  have  been  chronicled  with  trumpet  tongue, 
and  with  accuracy  and  fullness  of  blazon  for  all  time^ 
is  in  itself  the  strongest  of  the  proofs  we  seek.  That 
we  are  compelled  to  eke  -out  evidence  from  coherent 
or  causative  facts,  from  unguarded  outflashings  of 
sentiment  or  passion  in  the  narrator,  from  the  figure 
of  the  poet,  the  sneer  of  the  satirist,  the  epigram  of 
the  wit,  is  painfully  significant.  Such  silence  has  a 
terrible  eloquence.  That  historic  record,  torn,  muti- 
lated, bleared  and  blotted  all  over  with  tears  and 
blood,  what  language  can  speak  so  much.  "We  seem 
to  be  listening  to  the  broken  sobs  and  hushed  breath- 
ings of  a  crushed,  writhing  and  stifled  victim, 
exhausted  with  agony  and  terror.  Could  any  descrip- 
tion so  prove  the  guilt  of  the  "  great  quell  ?"  the 
deadly  wrong  wrought  to  the  mind  of  Italy  ?  Ages  of 
spiritual  tyranny,  espionage,  intimidation  and  bloody 
repression  look  out  on  us  from  that  marred  and  stifled 
record.  That  noble  and  gifted  Italian  mind — for  cen- 
turies it  must  have  been  beaten  down,  awed,  gagged 
and  all  but  suffocated  through  all  that  glorious 
peninsula.  How  terrible  and  ruthless  must  have 
been  the  pressure  of  tyranny  to  have  accomplished 
such  a  result ! 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  233 

"We  may  measure  the  strength  of  an  upheaving, 
by  the  force  requisite  to  keep  it  down.  So  we  may 
estimate  the  insurrectionary  movement  of  the  Italian 
mind  against  spiritual  despotism,  by  the  frightful 
measures  of  repression  employed.  Thus  the  ruthless 
policy  of  potentates  and  hierarchs,  the  introduction 
of  the  Inquisition  into  Italy,  the  institution  of  the 
gloomy  orders  of  the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans, 
(minions  of  repression),  censorships,  sanguinary 
edicts,  proscriptions,  imprisonment,  exile,  murder, 
massacre,  to  what  a  strength  of  revolt  in  the  mind 
of  Italy,  were  such  appliances  addressed  ?  yea,  each 
martyr  flame,  the  axe,  the  dungeon,  the  Holy  Office, 
they  have  each  a  terrible  significance.  All  point  to 
spiritual  despotism  fastening  on  beautiful,  glorious 
Italy,  aiming  to  strangle  its  soul.  "We  see  the  weird 
and  talon  fingers  on  the  throat  of  the  victim ;  we 
hear  the  death  rattle ;  and  that  is  all !  Such  is  the 
impression  on  us  of  the  testimony  of  Italian  litera- 
ture on  our  present  question. 

From  causes  and  facts  of  which  we  have  indubita- 
ble knowledge,  we  are  certified  of  a  formidable 
reaction  against  the  spiritual  power  in  Italy,  as  inevi- 
table. That  that  reaction  took  its  course  toward  in- 
fidelity, we  also  know,  not  only  from  the  laws  of  mind 
acting  in  the  circumstances,  but  also  from  a  great 
variety  of  historic  testimony,  specific  or  by  way  of 


234  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

direct  implication  or  allusion.  Evidence  of  it 
glimpses  upon  us  also,  whenever  the  literature  of  the 
drama,  the  romance,  the  ballad  or  satire,  or  that  of 
homiletics,  politics,  judicature  or  philosophy,  lift  for 
a  moment  the  veil  from  the  muffled  national  mind. 
Tliere  is  a  current  strong  and  distinct  as  of  the 
rajDids  above  the  cataract.  It  is  as  though  we  stood 
near  the  brink  of  an  abyss,  and  saw  multitudes  borne 
continually  towards  its  verge ;  and  then  disajDp ear- 
ing. We  need  no  description  or  narrative  to  tell  us 
what  waits  beyond.  A  broken  shriek,  a  mighty 
groan  caught  by  snatches  wailing  up  from  the 
darkness,  is  enough.  We  know  death  is  below. 
Such  is  the  evidence  for  the  most  part,  that  comes 
to  us  of  infidelity  in  Italy  produced  by  spiritual 
despotism.  We  see  multitudes  borne  along  the 
dark  stream,  impelled  by  forces  they  are  ill  able  to 
resist,  to  the  verge  of  that  fatal  steep  of  skepticism 
from  which,  alas!  few  of  the  sons  of  genius  ever  return. 
There  they  disappear.  They  pass  into  the  gloom 
and  silence  of  a  system  of  despotic  ruthless  repres- 
sion, that  lets  in  no  light  on  its  victims,  and  allows 
no  ear  to  listen  too  nearly  to  their  stifled  curse  and 
groan.  A  deep  wail,  a  vast  sigh,  a  death-shriek 
breaking  up  at  intervals  from  the  darkness  and 
silence,  fills  up  the  chapter.  But  we  need  no  more. 
The  terrible  reactive  force  toward  unbelief  caused  by 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  235 

spiritual  despotism  is  abundantly  proved  in  Italy, 
though  most  of  its  utterances  have  been  foully  and 
bloodily  smothered. 

That  infidelity  should  s^pring  ii^j?  under  the  shadow 
of  such  thrones  as  during  the  medicBval  era  claimed 
to  he  the  seat  of  God^s  mcegerent  on  earthy  as  natur- 
ally as  the  poisonous  mushroom  and  night-shade  in 
the  mephitic  damp  and  dark,  there  needs  neither 
history  nor  prophecy  to  certify  us.  Popes  foul  with 
almost  all  crimes  of  human  nature  and  those  beyond 
it,  passing  before  such  a  mind  as  that  of  Italy  in  the 
middle  ages  and  those  immediately  subsequent,  men 
lifted  to  the  pontifical  chair  by  the  bribery  and 
violence  of  bandit  nobles,  or  the  favors  of  frail  ladies 
of  the  Boman  patricianate,  or  by  ecclesiastic  in- 
trigue, conspiracy  and  simony  bidding  for  the  spiri- 
tual empire  of  mankind ;  men  dragging  along  their 
imperial  purple  and  scarlet  smeared  with  rapine, 
incest  and  murder — from  the  vision  of  such  men  as 
vicegerents  of  God,  the  covert  of  hideous  atheism 
itself  were  a  refuge  !  Monsters  like  Gcesar  Borgia 
and  Alexander  Y.,  literary  sybarites  or  paganized 
amateurs  and  dilettanti,  like  the  Sextuses  and  Leos ; 
the  gloomy  fanatacism  of  the  Innocents ;  the  ferocious 
bigotry  of  the  Pauls  and  Victors,  the  lust  and  glut- 
tony and  homicide  of  the  Benedicts  and  Johns  ;  and 
the  political  ambition  and  cabal  of  the  Bonifaces, 


236  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Clements  and  Gregories — these  and  such  a  lineage 
as  to  a  great  extent  for  ages  seized  the  sceptre  of  St. 
Peter — a  lineage  where  the  miser  and  intriguant,  the; 
debauchee,  the  fanatic  and  the  assassin,  oft  succeed 
each  other,  oft  seem  blent  in  infernal  perfectness  of 
sin  in  the  same  person — such  a  dynasty  sitting  in  the 
seat  of  God,  the  infallible  expositors  and  oracles 
of  fhe  divine  word,  having  the  lordship  of  faith  and 
morals  and  the  keys  of  Heaven — such  a  dynasty  of  a 
kingdom  of  truth  and  love,  with  the  crucified  Gali- 
lean for  its  founder  and  the  sermon  on  the  Mount  for 
its  fundamental  law  I  such  men  in  such  a  position ! 
it  were  enough  to  send  a  tremor  of  horror  or  laughter 
through  the  whole  earth.  A  solecism  so  blasphemous 
were  enough  to  draw  on  it  at  once  the  bolts  of  out- 
raged heaven  and  the  blasts  of  a  world's  sneer  and 
hate. 

And  when  we  learn  that  the  lower  orders  of  the 
Jiierarchy  and  the  regular  and  secular  clergy  were  to 
a  melancholy  degree^  to  such  a  pontificate,  ''fit  lody 
to  fit  head  f^  when  we  look  at  the  surroundings  of 
the  pontificate,  its  court  thronged  with  men  steeped 
through  and  through  with  the  filth  and  fraud  and 
blood  of  Italian  politics  in  the  middle  ages^  or  its 
environment  with  groups  ecclesiastical,  political  or 
literary,  which  seemed  to  make  Papal,  like  Pagan 
Kome,  in  its   origin,  a  city  of  refuge  among  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  237 

nations,  and  to  convert  the  Lateran  conclavei  into  a 
focns  of  Machiavellian  cabal  and  conspiracy  for  all 
Europe — it  seems  like  one  of  the  pictures  the  daring 
muse  of  Dante  has  hung  on  the  walls  of  Eternal 
Kight;  it  grows  on  the  vision  like  the  palace  of 
infernal  Dis  amid  its  setting  of  ninefold  Hells. 

With  such  a  spectacle  before  the  Italian  mind, 
arrogating  to  be  the  high  court  of  Jesus  Christ  on 
earth,  interveniDg  between  the  visions  of  the  million 
and  the  Eedeemer,  and  with  bloody  and  blinding 
enforcement  compelling  the  acceptance  of  itself  by 
them,  as  the  representative  of  Christianity,  what  else 
could  have  resulted  than  a  shudder  of  unbelief 
through  the  peninsula  ?  '•  If  such,"  (men  must  have 
reasoned)  "if  such  are  God's  vicegerents,  who  then 
are  Satan's?  such  the  holders  of  heaven's  keys;  who 
then  shall  stand  at  the  doors  of  hell  ?" 

With  such  necessary  induction  from  known  historic 
facts  and  laws  of  the  human  mind,  we  can  translate 
utterances  and  facts,  which  Italian  history  and  litera- 
ture, spite  of  inquisition  and  censorship,  have  at 
times  allowed  to  escape  them,  significant  of  a  strong, 
deep  undercurrent  of  skepticism  in  the  popular 
mind,  flowing  beneath  mute  or  servile  ages.  We  read 
in  them  the  indubitable  signs  of  a  vast  defection  from 
the  Christian  faith.  With  such  guides  to  interpreta- 
tion, we  recognize  in  the  jest  of  the  Troubadour^ 


238  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

already  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  sneer  of  the  phi- 
losopher of  the  eighteenth.  In  the  sarcasm  of  Ray- 
mond De  Castelnau,  "if  God  saves  those  whose  sole 
merit  consists  in  loving  good  living,  and  handsome 
women ;  if  friars  the  black  and  white,  and  templars 
and  hospitallers  win  the  joys  of  paradise,  great  fools 
in  sooth  were  St.  Andrew  and  St.  Peter,  who  suftered 
so  much  for  what  these  men  win  so  easily  ;"  in  such 
utterances,  flinging  out  from  time  to  time  in  litera- 
ture, we  have  assurances  that  the  atrocious  solecism 
of  a  religion  without  morality,  was  producing  its 
natural  effect  of  derision  and  incredulity,  toward  its 
professed  representatives,  likely  to  be  directed  ulti- 
mately against  the  faith  itself  thus  caricatured  and 
belied. 

Amid  the  multitudinous  testimony  furnished  by 
Italian  literature,  turn  we  a  moment  to  their  great 
national  poets^  to  the  poets  rather  than  the  philoso- 
phers or  even  historians,  because  they  more  livingly 
and  with  less  effective  repression  of  the  censor, 
reflect  the  national  feeling.  Glance  a  moment  at 
the  great  Homeric  oracles  of  the  genius  of  Italy  in 
the  middle  ages,  Dante  and  Petrarch.  Was  not  spiri- 
tual despotism  producing  a  revolt  of  the  ItaHan  mind 
from  the  papal  church,  a  revolt  of  necessity  ultimat- 
ing  in  infidelity,  to  a  people  shut  out  from  all  other 
representation  of  Christianity — when  Dante,  in  his 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  239 

wondrous  vision,  places  some  of  the  highest  digni- 
taries of  that  Church  amid  reprobates  in  hell  ?  and 
describes  Eome  as  the  Babylon  of  revelations  ?  How 
far  from  skepticism  was  the  Italian  mind,  when  look- 
ing forth  on  the  papacy  as  representing  Christianity, 
it  utters  itself  in  the  Divine  Comedia  ;  which  poem, 
in  its  nineteenth  canto  exhibits  Pope  Nicholas  III.  in 
one  of  the  circles  of  inferno,  suspended  with  head 
downward  through  certain  apertures  in  the  burning 
rock,  with  legs  projecting  upward  and  blazing  like  a 
lamp,  and,  in  this  most  unpontifical  posture,  awaiting 
the  coming  of  worse  miscreants  than  himself,  Clement 
Y.  and  Boniface  VIII.  How  far  from  infidelity 
must  that  mind  be  that  drew  that  picture,  so  far  as 
popedom,  that  is,  spiritual  despotism  concreted  in 
the  Komisli  See,  was  Christianity.  How  far  again 
from  unbelief  was  the  same  Italian  mind,  thus 
expressing  itself  in  another  passage  in  that  same 
poem,  in  apostrophe  to  the  papacy  : 

"  Your  avarice 
Overcasts  the  world  with  mourning,  under  foot 
Treading  the  good  and  raising  bad  men  up. 
Of  Shepherds  lili:e  to  you,  the  Evangelist 
Was  ware,  when  her  who  sits  upon  the  waves 
With  kings  in  filthy  whoredom,  he  beheld  ; 
She  who  with  seven  heads  towered  at  her  birth, 
And  from  ten  horns  her  proof  of  glory  drew. 
Of  gold  and  silver  ye  have  made  your  God,  &c.'' 


240  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

Proof  ample  this,  of  ecclesiastical  corruption  bred 
of  spiritual  despotism,  and  sure  to  breed  infidelity,  if 
not,  of  infidelity  itself. 

Was  Italy  of  unruffled  faith,  again,  wbeii  even 
the  mild  Petrarch,  member  of  the  ecclesiastical  body 
and  favored  resident  of  the  papal  court,  spite  of 
ambition,  interest,  love  and  gratitude,  fled  the 
Eoman  court  as  the  spot  where  he  saw  crimes  of 
religious  usurpation  heightened  by  the  ^'abandonment 
of  every  virtue  ?"  and  when  from  his  retirement  in 
Yauchise  he  thus  raised  his  revered  and  dreaded 
voice  against  the  corruptions  of  Rome  ? 

"  From  impious  Babylon — from  whence 

All  shame  hath  fled  and  every  good  is  gone  : 

Mother  of  errors — dwelling-place  of  grief 

I've  fled ! 

May  flames  from  Heaven  upon  their  tresses  fall ; 

0  forge  of  treachery !    0  prison  dire ! 

Death-place  of  every  virtue,  nurse  of  every  ill, 

Hell  of  the  living !  great  the  miracle 

If  Christ  rouse  not  at  length  his  tardy  ire ! 

Unblushing  wretch !  what  hope  remains  for  thee  ?'' 

These  are  signs — signs  if  not  of  absolute  skepti- 
cism, of  minds  verging  toward  it,  and  of  the  presence 
of  ecclesiastical  corruption — the  foul  birth  of  spirit- 
ual despotism — sure  to  produce  it. 

"With  signs  such  as  these,  selected  from  poets  that 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  241 

were  good  churclimen  and  national  oracles  in  the 
Italian  literature  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  Luther  in  his 
visit  to  Eome,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  was  shocked 
at  hearing  expressions  of  a  flippant  and  sneering 
skepticism  from  beside  the  altar  and  under  the  very 
shadows  of  the  Yatican. 

With  the  above  causes,  in  the  ecclesiastic  condi- 
tion and  constitution  of  Italy,  and  the  tendencies  of 
the  Italian  mind  exhibited  in  its  literature,  corres- 
pond other  facts  presented  in  its  general  hist07-y^  in 
fragmentary  form  and  without  logical  relation,  but 
showing  evidence  of  the  same  movement  toward 
religious  revolt  and  skepticism  in  the  Italian  mind — 
such  facts  as  these  for  instance ;  that  for  ages  one 
half  of  Italy  were  in  open  and  direct  warfare  with 
the  papacy;  that  not  only  dukes,  princes  and 
military  chiefs,  but  entire  principalities  and  the  com- 
mon people  of  tlie  cities,  defied  fearlessly  the  author- 
ity of  the  supreme  spiritual  lord  of  Christendom  and 
the  terrors  of  the  interdicts  and  excommunication  ; 
that  in  the  chronicles  of  the  difierent  republics  and 
the  lives  of  the  most  distinguished  Italians  for  ages — 
statesmen,  publicists,  poets,  and  philosophers — we 
meet  with  a  constant  vein  of  hostility  to  the  pro- 
fessed Head  of  the  Church.  Such  facts  stand  before 
us  as  natural  consequences  of  disastrous  causes  already 

11 


242  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

considered,  and  significant  of  a  profound  revolt 
against  the  spiritual  power  ;  a  revolt  wliicli  inevita- 
bly, in  the  absence  of  a  knowledge  of  true  Chris- 
tianity tyrannously  hid  from  Italy  by  this  power, 
must  have  become  revolt  against  Christianity  it- 
self. The  appearance  also  of  such  men  as  Arnold 
of  Brescia  in  the  twelfth,  and  a  Savonarola  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  such  facts  as  the  founding  of 
the  Pranciscan  and  Dominican  orders  in  the  twelfth 
century,  as  champions  and  bulwarks  of  the  Eomish 
church  against  perceived  dangers,  and  antagonist  to 
the  mental  activity  and  growing  intelligence  mani- 
fested in  the  Paterini  and  Albigenses,  are  exponents 
of  the  same  great  movement  in  the  Italian  mind. 
"When  we  are  told,  as  we  are  by  Sismondi  in  his 
history  of  Italy  (page  YO)  of  Frederic  11.  the  most 
brilliant  of  the  Hohenstaufens,  that  while  he  loved 
literature  and  encouraged  learning,  founding  schools 
and  universities,  and  was  distinguished  for  an  inteh 
lectual  suppleness,  a  taste  for  philosophy,  and  a  great 
independence  of  opinion,  he  manifested  also  a  lean- 
ing toward  infidelity — when  we  are  told  again  by 
the  same  author  that  in  Italy,  subsequently  and 
especially  after  the  translation  of  the  books  of 
Averrhoes,  "  thinkers  throughout  Italy  were  accused 
by  priests  not  only  of  heresy  but  of  Epicurism  and 
infidelity,"  and  "  the  young  men  of  the  court  of  the 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  243 

De  Medici,'  devoted  to  ancient  literature,  were 
charged  with  preferring  the  religion  of  the  ancient 
Romans  to  that  of  the  Church  " — when  such  state- 
ments are  presented  they  do  not  surprise  us.  Such 
combination  of  unbelief  with  intelligence  we  should 
regard  as  inevitable  in  the  circumstances  of  Italian 
history  in  that  period. 

So,  again,  when  a  reliable  historic  "writer  states 
(Green's  Historic  studies)  that  with  men  of  brightest 
intellect  in  Italy  in  the  sixteenth  century,  religious 
investigation  terminated  in  skepticism ;  and  that 
notoriously  in  the  epoch  of  Luther,  "not  only  the 
universities  of  Italy  but  also  the  churclies  were 
filled  with  men  whose  brilliant  talents  and  profound 
learning  had  not  sufficed  to  save  them  from  infide- 
lity " — such  a  statement  exhibits  to  us  only  a  natural 
and  logical  sequence  of  causes  already  known, 
springing  from  the  spiritual  despotism  and  ecclesias- 
tic constitution  and  condition  of  Italy.  It  was  a 
necessary  result,  verified  by  the  logic  as  well  as  re- 
cord of  history,  that  Italy  should  be,  as  it  notorious- 
ly was  in  the  sixteenth  century,  full  of  unbelievers — 
infidel  princes,  courtiers,  statesmen,  captains,  artists, 
writers  ;  indeed  infidel  monks^  priests,  lishops,  cardi- 
nals, turn  up  everywhere.  Yea  in  the  person  of 
Leo  X.,  as  in  some  popes  before  and  after  him,  infi- 
delity seems  to  have  sat  on  the  throne  of  the  Romish 


244  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

world.  Infidelity  thus  took  up  its  abode  in  monas- 
ter j,  cathedral,  sacristy  and  oratory,  behind  the 
chancel,  yea  even  beneath  the  triple  crown  itsel£ 

Thus  down  into  the  sixteenth  century,  despotism 
had  borne  its  gi-apes  of  Sodom.  Rome  was  startled 
in  the  early  part  of  that  century,  not  by  the  unbelief 
that  spread  through  her  like  a  pontine  miasm,  but 
h  J  finding  a  faith  springing  ujp  that  dared  to  see  a 
God  and  Relieve  in  a  Christ  ajpart  from  herself. 
Protestantism  at  length  alarmed  her,  whom  atheism 
only  lulled  to  a  voluptuous  repose.  She  took  mea- 
sures ruthless,  awfully  summary.  She  roused  from 
her  soft  dream  of  sensual  and  intellectual  voluptuous- 
ness, her  engrossment  with  "  choice  cookery,  deli- 
cious wines,  lovely  women,  hounds,  falcons,  horses, 
newly  discovered  manuscripts  of  the  classics,  sonnets 
and  burlesque  romances  in  the  sweetest  Tuscan  just 
as  licentious  as  a  pure  sense  of  the  graceful  would 
permit" — from  these  she  roused  herself  to  a  banquet 
of  blood,  the  noblest  blood  of  Italy.  She  called  in 
the  Inquisition ;  and  clothed  it  with  powers  and 
infused  into  it  a  spirit  that  made  it  a  whis^Dcr  of 
horror  from  Calabria  to  the  Alps.  Its  adamantine 
raercilessness  and  its  impartial  cruelties  seemed 
borrowed  of  the  king  of  Hell.  ]^o  rank  nor  wealth, 
nor  privilege  of  republics,  nor  favor  of  kings,  was 
a  safeguard.    The  timid  convert  and  the  enthusiastic 


SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM    IN    ITALY.  245 

proselyte  were  alike  exposed  to  accusation.  Cassock 
and  cowl  were  no  longer  a  protection ;  monks  were 
drawn  forth  from  the  secrecy  of  the  cloister;  the 
learned  from  the  seclusion  of  their  studies ;  the  sanc- 
tities of  domestic  life  were  violated;  superstition 
and  fear  were  everywhere.  The  stake,  the  robe  of 
pitch,  the  knife,  the  axe,  the  rack,  the  hunt  of  here- 
tics through  the  forest  and  the  high  Alps,  the  mar- 
tyrdoms of  famine  and  flight,  of  the  desolate  cave, 
the  subterranean  dungeon  and  of  the  midnight  Adri- 
atic— these  with  infernal  energy  consummated  the 
work.  A  deep,  voiceless,  almost  breathless  terror 
pervaded  Italy.  The  mind  of  Italy  was  strangled  in 
her  gore. 

But  this  silence  was  not  lyelief.  Did  Italy  though 
crushed  and  strangled,  helieve  the  grisly  horror  stand- 
ing on  her  breast,  with  the  sword  to  her  throat,  and 
calling  itself  Christianity — did  she  believe  that  ogre 
to  be  a  God  ?  From  such  a  religion  she  would  hide 
behind  eternal  night.  ISTo!  underneath  Italy  now 
lies  an  infidelity  deep  though  silent,  as  her  earth- 
quake, till  her  hour  is  come,  and  then  destined  to  be 
as  terrible.  ISTo ;  Italy  is  no  exception  to  our  general 
argument ;  spiritual  despotism  did  breed  skepticism, 
she  quenched  Protestantism  but  could  not  restore 
faith.  Superstition  and  infidelity  now  divide  the 
Peninsula — twin  curses — almost  making  the  emanci- 
pation of  Italv  a  despair. 


246  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 


SPAm. 


Such  is  tlie  vaunted  repose  of  faitli  spiritual  despot- 
ism has  secured  to  Italy.  Let  us  now  turn  a  moment 
and  glance  at  that  other  country  in  Europe,  often 
appealed  to  as  a  monument  of  the  power  of  spirtual 
despotism  to  save  nations  from  infidelity.  Why,  it 
may  be  asked,  did  not  Spain  exhibit  the  same  pas- 
sionate insurrection  against  Christianity  as  the  neigh- 
boring peoples  of  Europe  during  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury ?  We  answer  as  in  case  of  Italy,  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  blinded  see  no  startling  sights ;  that 
a  man  in  chains  and  prison  is  guilty  of  no  highway 
robbery ;  that  a  corpse  is  not  troubled  with  convul- 
sion and  fever.  Spiritual  despotism  excluded  infide- 
lity as  the  grave  shuts  out  delirium.  The  secret  of 
this  exclusion,  the  instrument  alike  of  Spanish  and 
of  Italian  orthodoxy  is  found  in  one  word — that  word, 
the  ultimate  Jogic  of  spiritual  despotism — a  word 
most  hateful,  hideous,  accursed  in  the  vocabulary  of 
modern  history — the  inquisition;  the  panacea  for 
heresy  that  cures  by  killing.  It  suppressed  infidelity 
lyy  stifling  the  Spanish  mind.  Whenever  that  mind 
has  revived,  on  the  removal  of  the  suffocating  pres- 
sure of  the  holy  office,  unbelief,  as  in  the  last  age, 
immediately  sprang  up  again.  In  the  era  of  the 
French  devolution  infidelity  crossed  the  Pyrenees 
before  the  columns  of  IsTapoleon. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    SPAIN.  247 

This  terrible  engine  for  crnsliing  the  minds  of 
nations,  the  inquisition,  was,  strange  to  relate,  intro- 
duced into  Spain  by  the  heroic  and  gentle  Isabella 
in  1481.  It  was  probably  the  most  frightful  and 
effective  instrument  of  intellectual  repression  ever 
invented  by  man.  In  the  first  year  of  its  existence, 
in  the  single  province  of  Andalusia  alone,  it  burned 
two  thousand  victiins,  in  addition  to  seventeen 
thousand  who  suffered  a  less  severe  punishment  than 
the  stake.  "  All  its  action,"  says  Ticknor,  "  was  in 
secrecy  and  in  darkness.  From  the  moment  when 
the  inquisition  laid  its  grasp  on  the  object  of  its  sus- 
picions, no  voice  was  heard  to  issue  from  its  cells. 
Often  the  victim  was  never  after  heard  of  He  dis- 
appeared from  men.  Men's  minds  were  appalled. 
Imagination  was  filled  with  horror  at  the  idea  of  a 
power  so  vast,  so  silent,  so  omnipresent,  and  which 
killed  by  a  blow  from  out  an  impenetrable  gloom. 
Soon  its  warfare  was  turned  against  the  thoughts  of 
men,  even  more  than  their  external  crimes.  The 
intellectual  and  cultivated  peculiarly  felt  the  sense  of 
personal  security  more  and  more  shaken.  They 
resisted  only  to  perish." 

Its  next  step  was  a  war  on  looks.  When  the 
Lutheran  reform  broke  out,  and  seemed  to  threaten 
Spain,  1521,  then  fulminated  forth  from  Kome  the 
edict  against  Sjjanish  thought ;  war  especially  was 


248  CAUSE    OF   INFIDELITY. 

declared  against  Lutheran  books.  The  Gx'and  Inqui- 
sition immediately  issued  orders  for  search  and 
seizure  of  all  heretical  books.  Already,  in  1496,  the 
inquisition  under  Torquemada  had  burned  large 
quantities  of  Hebrew  bibles,  and  other  manuscripts 
at  Seville,  as  Jewish  writings.  It  now  claimed  the 
right  of  examining  all  books  and  determining  what 
might  be  published.  In  1526,  was  published  in 
Spain  the  first  Index  Exj^uvgatorius^  with  denuncia- 
tion by  Philip  II.  of  confiscation  and  death  against 
any  person  who  should  sell,  or  buy,  or  keep  in 
possession,  any  book  prohibited  by  that  index. 
There  was  now  a  direct  death-grapple  with  the 
intellectual  life  of  Spain.  It  was  as  though  the 
horrid  instrument  of  torture,  called  the  "  Maiden,'^ 
invented  and  applied  by  the  inquisition  to  the  bodies 
of  men,  was  with  the  embrace  of  its  arms  of  steel 
and  its  dagger-fingers,  applied  to  the  Spanish  soul. 
Such  was  the  infernal  pitilessness  with  which  the 
murder  of  the  Spanish  mind  was  j)rosecuted.  The 
contest  was  terrible,  but  brief  In  ten  years,  from 
1559  to  1570,  Protestanism  was  smothered  in  its  own 
blood  throughout  the  Spanish  peninsula.  Minds  the 
noblest  and  loftiest  in  it,  perished,  and  elements  that 
might  have  saved  Spain  ages  of  sujDcrstition,  and 
irreligion,  and  shame,  were  eliminated  from  the 
Spanish  civilization.     By  a  brief  of  Pope  Paul  lY., 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    SPAIN.  249 

1558,  the  inquisition  was  required  to  proceed  against 
all  suspected  persons^  be  they  bishops,  archbishops, 
cardinals,  dukes,  kings,  or  emperors;  a  power  the 
most  terrible  ever  created  against  progress,  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  The  auto  da  fe,  followed  at  Yal- 
ladolid  and  elsewhere.  "  The  number  of  victims  wJls 
not  large  compared  with  earlier  periods  ;  seldom  more 
than  twenty  being  burned  at  once."  "  But  among 
these  were  the  leading  active  minds  of  the  age." 
"  Men  of  learning,"  says  Ticknor,  "  were  peculiarly 
obnoxious  to  suspicion,  since  the  cause  of  Protestant- 
ism appealed  directly  to  learning  for  its  support. 
Sanchez,  the  best  classical  scholar  of  his  time  in  Spain, 
Louis  de  Leon,  the  best  Hebrew  critic  and  most  elo- 
quent preacher,  and  Miranda,  the  chief  Spanish  histo- 
torian,  with  other  men  of  letters,  were  summoned 
before  the  inquisition.  l!To  rank  or  position,  or  holi- 
ness, or  circumstances  of  life,  exempted  from  mis- 
trust, if  they  but  showed  a  tendency  to  inquiry." 
Thus  was  the  deadliest  and  guiltiest  of  crimes  man 
can  commit  attempted  on  Spain,,  the  massacre  of  its 
intelligence,  reason  and  thought.  The  great  purpose 
of  spiritual  despotism  was  in  ten  years  accomplished, 
at  least  further  than  in  any  other  Christian  country 
before  or  since. 

The  policy  of  repression  and  expulsion  of  religious 
dissent,  was  followed  up  with  atrocious  ruthlessness. 

11* 


250  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

The  tiger-appetite  of  fanatacism  roused  in  the  infer- 
nal game,  was  never  allowed  to  slacken.  The  expul- 
sion of  six  hundred  thousand  Moors,  the  most  peace- 
able and  industrious  of  Spanish  subjects,  is  merely 
one  of  its  waymarks.  Sjxmish  manhood  perished 
under  its  dreadful  pressure.  Soon  all  writers  and 
books  show  marks  of  utter  intellectual  subjugation. 
"  From  the  abject  title  pages  and  '  dedications,'  "  says 
Ticknor,  "  of  the  authors  themselves,  through  crowds 
of  certificates  collected  from  friends,  to  establish  the 
orthodoxy  of  works  as  little  connected  with  religion 
as  fairy  tales,  down  to  the  colophon  supplicating 
pardon  for  any  unconscious  neglect  of  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  or  any  too  free  use  of  classical 
mythology^  we  are  continually  oppressed  with  pain- 
ful proofs,  how  completely  the  human  mind  was 
enslaved  in  Spain."  Tlie  natural  consequences 
ensued.  Life  and  power,  with  freedom,  soon  passed 
from  the  Spanish  character.  "With  its  loyalty  and 
dignity,  its  earnest  faith  likewise  perished.  Spain 
shrivelled  and  wasted  as  by  a  slow  plague ;  from  the 
position  of  the  proudest  and  noblest  nation  in  Europe, 
threatening  the  earth  with  universal  empire,  she 
sank,  almost  within  a  single  life  of  man,  to  feebleness, 
servility,  and  almost  to  utter  dissolution.  E'o  nation 
in  Christendom  had  fallen  from  such  a  height  of 
power  to  such  an,  abyss  of  degradation.     Spiritual 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    SPAIN.  251 

despotism  had  struck  her  from  her  veiy  "pride  ofj 
place,"  down  for  ever ;  and  applied  to  her  the 
vampire  embrace  of  the  inquisition,  till  she  lay  pros- 
trate, bloodless,  faint  and  dying,  her  breath  of  agony 
hushed  under  a  vast  fear.  Intellectual  inclependence 
and  manly  freedom,  were  crushed,  chained,  and 
starved  to  death.  The  commonest  forms  of  truth 
were  excluded ;.  the  human  mind  pined  and  dwarfed 
for  want  of  nourishment.  The  great  sciences,  both 
moral  and  physical,  that  for  a  century  had  been 
illumining  and  quickening  the  rest  of  Europe,  were 
unable  to  force  their  way  through  "  the  jealous 
guard,  which  ecclesiastical  and  political  despotism 
had  joined,  to  keep  for  ever  watching  at  the  gates  of 
the  Pyrenees."  All  instruction  not  approved  by  the 
Church,  was  treated  as  dangerous.  At  the  university 
no  elegant  learning  was  fostered,  save  such  as  was 
fitted  to  form  scholastic  churchmen  and  faithful 
Catholics.  The  physical  and  exact  sciences  were 
carefully  forbidden,  except  so  far  as  they  could  be 
taught  on  the  authority  of  Aristotle.  The  scholastic 
philosophy  continued  to  be  regarded  as  the  highest 
form  of  intellectual  culture.  Diego  de  Torres  tells 
us,  it  was  by  mere  accident,  after  having  been  five 
years  at  the  university  of  Salamanca,  the  first  in  the 
kingdom,  that  he  learned  even  the  existence  of  the 
mathematical  sciences.     The  common  forms  of  know- 


252  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

ledge,  were  to  an  incredible  extent  kept  out  of  tlie 
country.  On  the  other  hand,  errors,  follies,  absurdi- 
ties, sprang  up  and  abounded.  Astrology,  celestial 
portents,  and  disastrous  influences  of  comets,  were 
universal  superstitions  in-  Spain,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century ;  while  the  system  of  Coperni- 
cus was  forbidden  to  be  taught  as  contrary  to  the 
scriptures ;  and  the  philosophy  of  Bacon,  with  all  its 
fruits  was  "  unknown."  '* 

Even  as  late  as  1Y85,  Ensenuado  as  minister  of 
State  made  report  to  Charles  the  YII.,  as  follows, 
"  There  is  not  a  jprofessorshij^  of  public  law  or  of 
experimental  science^  or  of  Anatomy  or  of  Botany 
in  the  Mngdom  !  TVe  have  no  exact  Geographical 
maps  of  the  country  (in  1785  ! !)  or  of  its  provinces, 
nor  anybody  who  can  make  them,  so  that  we  depend 
on  France  and  Holland,  and  are  shamefully  ignor- 
ant of  the  true  relations  and  distances  of  our  own 
towns."  So  in  1771  Salamanca  answered  to  Charles 
YII.  urging  the  universities  to  change  their  ancient 
habits,  and  teach  the  physical  and  exact  sciences, 
"  E'ewton  teaches  nothing  that  would  make  a  good 
logician  or  metaphysician,  and  Gossendi  and  Des 
Cartes  do  not  agree  so  well  with  revealed  truth  as 
Aristotle  does." 

But  enough,  we  see  what  the  boasted  exemption 
of  Spain  from  infidelity  amounted  to,  and  what  it  has 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM    IN    SPAIN.  253 

cost,  and  how  it  was  effected.  It  lias  cost  tlie  intel- 
lectual and  moral  life,  the  enlightenment,  the  dig- 
nity, and  "  earnest  faiW  of  the  Spanish  mind ;  and 
to  the  nation,  its  greatness  and  gloiy  of  character 
and  empire.  Its  fruits  are  still  discernible  not  only 
in  decrepid,  prostrate,  distracted,  impoverished,  dark- 
minded  Spain,  with  the  fanaticism  and  crime  of  its 
millions,  and  the  indescribable  corruption  and  imbe- 
cility of  its  court ;  but  in  the  vast  and  magnificent 
climes  of  this  continent,  over  which  the  shadow  of 
her  empire  and  soul  have  fallen  like  the  wing  of  the 
dark  angel.  ITor  has  this  suicidal  policy  safed  her- 
even  from  unbelief.  It  must  have  generated  it  deep 
in  the  ^oul  of  Spain.  Signs  unmistakable  mani- 
fested themselves  in  the  era  of  the  French  revolution 
in  spite  of  the  inquisition ;  even  before,  with  the 
eagles  of  Napoleon,  it  penetrated  the  Pyrenees  and 
lighted  on  the  Escurial.  And  at  this  hour  the  mind 
of  the  Peninsula  seethes  in  its  deeps,  with  fanatic 
and  abject  superstition  in  fermenting  combination 
with  a  wrathful,  and  libertine  infidelity. 

As,  therefore,  we  inquire,  how  and  with  what  con- 
sequence spiritual  despotism  has  kept  her  arrogated 
charge  of  the  world's  faith,  we  are  summoned  by  the 
muse  of  history  to  follow  her  at  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  to  the  heights  of  the  Alps  and  the 
Pyrenees,  and  look  out  on  three  historic  landscapes — 


254  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

realms  of  tliat  despotism  and  the  fairest  climes  of 
Europe.  Standing  there  we  look  northward,  and  lo, 
a  nation  burns !  monarchy,  church,  society,  sink  in 
the  mighty  conflagration.  The  fires  of  ruin  are  on 
throne,  tower  and  temple.  We  seem  to  be  looking 
at  the  opening  of  the  sixth  seal  of  the  Revelation. 
The  central  scene  is  a  vast  mad-house  where  all  the 
maniacs  have  broken  their  chains,  burst  their  cells, 
and  are  burning  their  prisons ;  and  the  furies  of  the 
crimes  of  a  thousand  years,  from  many  a  red  field  of 
fight  and  massacre^ — from  Bastiles  and  holy  offices 
and  sunless  cells  gloomy  with  midnight  murder — 
hover  over  the  revel  of  madness  and  death,  scatter- 
ing phrenzy  and  flame.  "Lo!"  says  the  muse  of 
history,  "one  achievement  of  spiritual  despotism." 
Faith  she  slew;  but  Atheism  and  Anarchy  arose 
from  its  blood,  avengers !  Lo  their  Saturnalia !  They 
drag  herself  to  the  funeral-pyre  of  her  slain,  and 
burn  her  in  the  conflagration  she  has  prepared. 

We  look  southward  to  the  Spanish  Peninsula,  and 
lo !  a  land  of  silence  and  darkness  and  the  shadow 
of  death;  "where  the  light  is  as  darkness!"  The 
dead  are  there.  A  ghostly  terror,  like  that  seen  of 
Satan  at  the  gates  of  Hell,  sits  alone  in  the  gloom. 
Life,  intellect,  manhood,  strength,  honor,  together 
with  faith,  lie  in  those  living  tombs  at  her  feet,  over 
which  she  keeps  ward  for  ages ;   brandishing  the 


SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM  IN  FRANCE ITALY SPAIN.  255 

terrors  of  the  earthly  sword  and  the  pangs  of  eternal 
fire.  "  Lo,"  says  the  historic  muse,  ''  Lo,  spiritual 
despotism  keeping  out  infidelity  from  Spain!  Her 
mctims  in  their  dee])  sleep  have  no  fever.  There  is 
no  delirium  in  the  graveP 

We  turn  to  that  other  land — the  land  of  ancient 
story — clime  of  glory  and  of  strength.  We  hear 
only  a  deep  respiration  as  from  the  dungeon  of  ages ! 
a  mighty  sigh  as  from  a  great  peojDle  in  mortal 
agony !  We  look,  and  lo,  a  nation  faint  and  pros- 
trate !  with  diadem  and  sceptre  and  broken  sword 
and  lyre  in  the  dust  beside  her;  the  memories  of 
empire  and  genius  on  her  pale  and  haughty  brow ! 
Lo,  there  she  lies,  together  with  her  glorious  children 
— art,  eloquence,  philosophy  and  song,  as  well  as 
faith,  gasping  nnder  the  ever-tightening  folds  of  spi- 
ritual despotism — a  Laocoon  in  the  grasp  of  the 
Python!  "Lo"  again  says  the  historic  muse — "  Z(? 
spirittcal  despotism  jprotecting  Italy  from  infidelity. '''' 


256  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 


co:n'clusio]S'. 

EESUME    OF   THE   ARGUMENT. 

Thus  have  we  discussed  as  we  have  been  able,  in 
the  course  of  our  brief  survey,  our  proposed  theme, 
THE  Infidelity  of  the  Eig-hteenth  Century.  "We 
have  endeavored  to  describe  and  trace  to  its  causes, 
that  portentous  eclipse  of  the  faith  of  the  world; 
have  considered  its  relations  to  the  religious  wars  of 
the  previous  historic  period,  the  dethronement  of  the 
religious  idea  and  the  rise  of  Mammonism  to  the 
ascendency  in  European  civilization  ;  its  relations  to 
the  revolution  in  philosophy,  and  the  emancipation 
of  mind  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
and  to  the  despotisms,  political  and  ecclesiastical, 
over  Europe  during  the  same  period ;  and  finally,  to 
the  peculiar  position  of  France  in  European  civiliza- 
tion and  the  elements  in  her  constitution  and  history, 
generative  and  diffusive  of  infidelity.  The  great 
cause — the  cause  of  causes — of  the  fearful  phenome- 
non we  are  analyzing,  we  have  found  to  be  not 
liberty  in  any  form^  hut  Spiritual  Despotism; 
wielded  by  monarchy  or  hierarchy  and  commonly 


RESUME    OF    THE    ARGUMENT.  257 

by  both,  holding  up  a  Church,  made  by  this  despot- 
ism imbecile,  corrupt  and  tyrannical,  between  the 
world  and  Jesus  Christ,  and  thus  darkening  the  faith 
of  nations. 

In  closing  our  review  of  this  theme  we  wish  to 
call  attention  to  one  most  solemn  aspect  of  it.  In 
attempting  to  trace  the  great  defection  of  Christen- 
dom from  the  Christian  faith  during  the  last  two 
centuries,  we  think  we  find,  as  was  indicated  in  a 
former  chapter,  their  causes  to  he  rather  practical 
than  specidative^  more  moral  than  intellectual^  less 
theological  than  ecclesiastic.  The  religious  insurrec- 
tion of  nations  was  ^political  and  social^  leather  than 
onetaphysical.  Their  revolt  was  less  from  Christian- 
ity than  the  Church;  or  at  least  was  from  Chris- 
tianity because  of  the  Church.  It  was  less  a  quarrel 
with  dogma  than  with  life,  or  it  was  with  dogma 
because  of  life.  So  it  was  then :  so  it  is  now,  and  so 
it  will  be  to  the  end.  The  world  will  read  the  living 
epistles  of  Christianity,  more  than  even  the  written 
word.  And  its  faith  will  be  determined  by  the 
exhibition  Christianity  may  make  of  itself  in  the  life 
of  individuals,  communions  and  communities,  more 
than  in  the  schools  of  philosophy,  or  the  halls  of 
theologic  debate.  And  we  venture  to  predict  that  if 
the  faith  of  the  world  ever  sufi'ers  again  a  similar 
disaster,  it  will  le  from  similar  causes  ;  it  will  be 


258  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

not  on  pantheism,  materialism,  fatalism,  pelagian- 
ism,  but  on  some  great  moral  apostasy  or  Practical 
Wrong,  that  primarily  at  least,  it  will  be  shipwreck- 
ed. Christianity  then  seemed  to  have  allied  itself 
with  atrocious  wrongs  in  society,  to  have  become  the 
champion  of  old  and  intolerable  abuses  and  absur- 
dities. And  as  men  could  not  but  distrust  a  religion 
which  seemed  to  be  in  conflict  with  their  conscience 
and  moral  sense,  so  they  were  compelled  to  hate  one 
which  threw  itself  across  the  path  of  human  progress, 
opposed  itself  to  social  ameliorations  and  conspired 
with  the  oppressors  and  iiberticides  of  the  world. 

!N"ot  the  least  fearful  now,  amid  the  signs  of  the 
times,  are  the  present  social  aspect  and  aim  of  infi- 
delity. Its  dream  and  passion  in  both  this  country 
and  Europe  is  not  more  a  theologiG  than  a  social 
revolution.  It  rejects  Christianity  less  because  of 
the  dogmas  of  the  trinity,  atonement,  predestination, 
than  its  chamjpionsM^  or  indulgence  of  political  or 
social  wrongs.  The  human  heart  indeed  may  hate  a 
religion  that  curbs  its  lusts.  But  until  it  can  mask 
that  hatred  hehind  some  jpalpalle  icrongor  absurdity^ 
it  will  be  little  likely  to  make  much  show  of  its 
hate ;  much  less  make  it  the  nucleus  of  any  exten- 
sive infidel  combination  or  conspiracy.  If  we  would 
utterly  discomfit  infidelity,  we  must  take  from  it 
such  masks.    Christianity  must  be  the  great  leader 


RESUME    OF    THE    ARGUMENT.  259 

and  guardian  of  reform,  the  religion  of  melioration, 
emancipation,  and  progress.  Ceasing  to  be  this,  slie 
draws  on  herself  the  incredulity  and  wrath  of  nations. 
Condemned  by  the  moral  judgment  of  mankind 
which  she  has  herself  instructed,  she  will  be  rejected 
of  them ;  and  society  moving  forward  on  a  course  of 
godless  reform,  will  find  itself  embarked  on  an  end- 
less cycle  of  bootless  revolution,  convulsion  and 
ruin. 

The  chief  malign  influence,  which  has  thrown  the 
spiritual  power  in  society  on  a  wrong  course  and 
placed  it  in  a  wrong  position,  as  we  have  oft  repeat- 
ed and  cannot  urge  too  earnestly,  has  been  that  of 
spiritual  despotism.  True,  we  see  infidelity  spring 
upon  society  from  many  causes.  But  she,  is  seen 
giving  malignancy  and,  to  a  great  extent,  origin  to 
all  others. 

Infidelity  gushes  upon  Europe  with  the  bloodshed 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  religious  wars. 
But  who  opened  that  terrible  wound  in  Christendom  ? 
Spiritual  despotism.  Infidelity  arose  upon  Europe 
from  the  great  philosophic  revolution  of  modern 
history.  But  what  made  a  revolution  in  itself  so 
beneficent  and  essential  to  the  progress  of  society,  so 
disastrous  in  its  consequences  to  religious  faith? 
Spiritual  despotism.  Infidelity  again,  with  the  rise 
and  ascendency  of  the  idea  of  wealth,  difi'used  itself 


260  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

throiigli  European  civilization.  But  what  made  the 
ascendency  of  that  idea  so  fatal  to  religious  belief? 
And  what  made  the  golden  stream,  that  poured  on 
European  society,  with  consequences  so  happy  and  so 
brilliant  to  other  interests,  so  deadly  to  this  ?  Spiritual 
despotism.  The  same  evil  cause  we  find  also  affecting 
disastrously  the  intellect,  morals  and  manners  of  the 
spiritual  order,  and  of  the  subject  nations.  Also, 
by  presenting  Christianity  with  a  false  aspect  as  a 
religion  of  force  and  cruelty,  and  fraud,  and  placing 
it  in  a  false  position  as  an  ally  of  political  despotism, 
and  social  wrongs,  it  draws  on  her  the  incredulity  and 
rage  of  the  oppressed  millions.  "W  e  have  found  her 
also,  by  investing  the  Church  with  the  IsTessian  purple 
of  her  infallibility,  converting  it  to  an  eternal  conser- 
vator of  all  the  lies,  follies,  mummeries,  superstitions 
and  crimes  of  the  past ;  and  obliging  it  to  pass  with 
all  these  before  the  derision  of  the  ages,  an  apostle  of 
unbelief  to  all  the  future. 

Thus  as  between  despotism  and  liberty,  as  was  first 
started  in  this  discussion,  the  question  of  compara- 
tive guilt  in  the  great  apostasy  of  the  European 
mind  from  the  Christian  faith,  admits  but  of  one  and 
that  an  obvious  solution.  That  solution  we  think 
one  of  grave  import  to  the  two  great  philosophic 
and  ecclesiastic  schools,  that  are  contending  for  the 
possession    of   modern    society,    and    the    modern 


ESSENTIAL    SPIRIT    OF    ROMANISM.  261 

Churcli;  which  schools  find  their  embodiment  and 
representation  in  Romanism  and  Protestanism,  in 
the  essentially  distinctive  imports  of  these  terms. 
Romanism  is  the  incarnation  or  organization  of  the 
principle  of  spiritual  despotism.  Tliis  is  the  central 
organic  principle,  to  which  all  its  environment  of 
rites,  forms  and  orders,  is  but  accident  or  incident. 
Of  Protestanism  on  the  other  hand,  in  its  ultimate 
essence,  the  life  principle  is  spiritual  liberty.  All 
violations  of  this  principle  calling  themselves  by  its 
name,  are  abuses  and  misnomers.  Between  Protes- 
tantism and  Romanism,  as  properly  representing  their 
distinctive  essential  principles  and  different  philoso- 
phic schools,  the  question  of  comparative  blame  for 
the  "  eclipse  of  faith  "  in  the  last  century,  admit  of 
no  hesitancy ;  between  them  as  representing  differ- 
ent historio  jparties  the  question  becomes  greatly 
changed.  Still  our  answer  though  not  as  absolute, 
must  be  the  same.  The  guilt  of  that  shipwreck  of 
the  faith  of  the  world,  must  be  laid  at  the  doors  of 
that  Church,  that  is  the  great  embodiment  of  spiri- 
tual despotism  on  earth,  and  claims  to  be  spiritual 
sovereign  of  mankind.  To  this  grave  charge  she 
must  plead  at  the  bar  of  History  and  of  God.  Kor 
may  any  disposition  to  merge  essential  antagonisms 
and  veil  crimes  of  the  past,  in  an  era  of  universal 
good  feeling,  avail  to  silence  this  fearful  arraignment, 


262  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

or  screen  lier  from  the  just  indignation  of  the  human 
race.  While  toward  the  men  that  are  in  her  com- 
munion we  would  deal  in  allkindness  and  all  charity, 
and  would  yield  to  none  in  love  and  admiration  of 
the  pure  and  noble  names  connected  with  it,  the 
justice  of  history,  the  majesty  and  sanctity  of  truth, 
and  principles  that  partake  of  the  eternity  and  awful- 
ness  of  God,  w^ill  not  allow  us  to  forget  that  the 
organic  and  central  prinGijoile  of  that  Church  is  one 
of  the  deadliest  and  most  malignant  plagues  that 
ever  broke  from  the  infernal  pit  to  curse  our  world, 
with  that  principle  the  world  can  have  no  peace  till 
it  has  driven  it  back  to  its  own  dark  den  again.  The 
earth  will  be  rent  and  torn  till  it  is  cast  out.  With 
any  system,  any  Church,  enshrining  that  principle, 
civilization  and  Christianity  must  wage  perpetual 
war.  Such  a  Church,  though  it  wear  the  awe  of 
vast  ages ;  though  the  cloud  of  one  thousand  years 
veil  its  mysterious  dome ;  though  saintly  faces  with- 
out number  look  on  you  from  painted  window  and 
pictured  ceiling,  and  stories  of  heroic  and  martyr 
piety  are  lettered  and  figured  all  over  the  marble 
column  and  frescoed  wall ;  and  music  like  rift  of 
angelic  anthem,  breathes  through  its  "long-drawn 
aisles  and  fretted  vaults  ;"  yea,  though  the  names  of 
David,  and  Job,  and  Isaiah  w^ere  there,  nothing  can 
save  it.     Against  it  all  the  human  race  will  fight, 


ITS    MALIGNITY.  263 

against  it  all  the  true  Cliiirch  on  earth ;  against  it 
all  the  angels  of  God.  The  temple  of  all  the  muses, 
and  the  graces,  and  the  virtues — let  spiritual  despot- 
ism once  enter  as  tutelar  genius,  it  becomes  ulti- 
mately a  cage  of  all  doleful  creatures.  That  spirit, 
wherever  found,  we  believe  to  be  essentially  and 
immortally  malignant,  hateful  to  man  and  God  ;  for- 
bidding with  itself  all  truce  and  all  compromise; 
rending  and  tearing  the  earth  till  it  is  cast  out.  And 
into  whatsoever  ecclesiastic  body  it  shall  enter  to 
possess  it,  we  believe  that  body  is  destined  to  be 
hated  of  God  and  of  all  good  and  wise  men,  and 
that  the  saints  shall  war  upon  it  and  slay  it,  and  burn 
it  with  fire. 

As  we  close  the  discussion  of  our  theme,  we  feel 
that  the  entire  scope  of  the  argument  we  have  tra- 
versed, the  general  principles  and  inductions  derived 
from  it,  and  the  scenes  and  facts  of  history  adduced, 
all  turn  the  eye  in  one  direction  in  awe  and  fear. 
Toward  one  power  calling  itself-  of  God,  "  sitting  in 
the  seat  of  God,"  the  mind  looks  in  fear  of  the  things 
which  both  revelation  and  the  philosophy  of  history 
announce  as  about  to  come  upon  her.  Long  since 
from  bloody  and  woeful  ages  went  up  against  her  a 
cloud  of  accusation  to  the  throne  of  God,  crying  out, 
"  How  long,  O  Lord,  holy  and  true,  dost  thou  not 
avenge  our  blood  on  them  that  dwell  on  the  earth  ?" 


264  CAUSE    OF    INFIDELITY. 

But  now  we  hear  another  voice  added  to  those 
under  the  altar — a  cry  from  the  darkened  million 
in  the  deeps  below  her  stupendous  cathedi'als — a 
blinded  Agonistes  groping  in  agony  of  revenge 
and  despair  "  for  the  pillars,"  and  exclaiming, 
"Strengthen  me,  I  pray  Thee,  this  once,  O  God,  that 
I  may  be  avenged  for  my  two  eyes."  Indeed  that 
power  must  stand  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  history,  of 
the  crime  of  almost  quenching  the  spiritual  vision  of 
a  century,  and  that  century  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  brilliant  in  human  annals.  When  we  look  at 
these  thickening  accusations  of  history  against  that 
power,  giving  up  so  many  ages,  and  believe  a  God 
of  history,  though  long  He  hideth  Himself,  still 
dwelleth  on  high,  terror  takes  hold  of  us.  Already 
there  seems  to  us  a  fearful  convergency  of  signs  in 
the  aspect  of  the  times,  and  in  the  Book  of  God,  look- 
ing toward  her ;  that  a  day  tempestuous  with  the 
long-stayed  anger  of  God  and  the  indignation  of  the 
human  race,  hastens.  And  when  it  burns  on  her 
proud  structures,  amid  all  her  names  of  blasphemy 
that  shall  be  made  to  kindle  and  to  stand  out  upon 
her  in  letters  of  fire  to  the  scorn  and  hate  of  Earth 
and  Heaven,  not  least  amid  title  of  arraignment  and 
sentence  on  her  brow,  shall  flame  out.  Mother  of 
Infidelity. 

THE     END. 


-o 


